Siegfried: A Tale of Redemption
by wickedmetalviking1990
Summary: A young man with a troubled past and a quest for vengeance suddenly finds himself swept up in an eons' old battle between good and evil. Can he find redemption, or will there be no end to the nightmare? Rated M for something that happens
1. The Last Breath

**(AN: Welcome to the new stage of history. Here I begin another tale of mine in the Soul Calibur fan-fictions. It is part of a three-way ff on the Soul series which might spawn other stages as well. As _Yoshimitsu: Angel of Vengeance_ deals primarily with Yoshimitsu and the non-canoincal _Witch's Soul_ will deal with characters from _The Witch's Saga_ as well as Ivy, this will focus primarily on somebody else)**

**(_Witch's Soul_ is the title of an up-and-coming release, which won't be published until _The Witch's Saga_ is finished [unfortunately]. More on that later)**

**(Right now, there is a battle going on in Ostrheinsburg Germany that will decide the fate of all)**

* * *

><p><strong>The Last Breath<strong>

The human form was thrown into the stone wall.

The pretty blond face was bruised and battered beyond recognition. Blood was splattered all over the cold stone floor of the chapel. He was coughing up blood, as if he had consumption. There was no hope for him.

Raphael would die this night.

The iron-clad boot pounded on the floor, bringing doom closer towards the dying Frenchman.

Monsieur Sorel had fought a worthy battle, one that would make anyone take him seriously as a swordsman. No one who saw that battle in the Ostrheinsburg cathedral would think that Monsieur Sorel was a coward, for he never ran, though his tiny rapier was no match for the zweihander wielded by the Azure Knight.

And it spelled his doom.

Now he lay bloodied and broken, another victim trapped in Ostrheinsburg cathedral.

A victim of his own pride.

He wanted the sword, to slay the nobility who made life in France so damn terrible. It wasn't for the people he wanted this, but for her. The one person who meant more to him than himself.

She saved his life, and for that, she was worth everything.

Raphael felt weaker than his body portrayed, lying there on the stone floor, as the shadow of darkness fell over him.

There was no escape, no hope for survival.

_No_, he told himself. _I cannot give up. Not now. I have to keep fighting, for her..._

"_For Amy._"

New strength pulsed into Raphael's body. Not enough to keep on fighting, but just enough for one blow.

One blow directly in the bastard's heart.

The Azure Knight loomed closer, two hands siezing the hilt of his huge sword, raising it above his head.

Kill me, Raphael thought.

His strength was waning, but he still had enough.

Why was the damn Azure Knight not moving?

He didn't care.

It was now or never.

Summoning the last of his energy, Raphael drove his rapier forward into a small wedge between the armor of the Azure Knight.

Black blood began flow.

A hideous, inhuman roar of pain echoed from beneath the iron helmet of the Azure Knight.

Raphael tore his sword out, not even recognizing that his left arm was covered in black blood.

He had failed, and barely escaped with his life.

But he summoned the last bit of life he possessed, pushing himself away from that damn cathedral.

It would all be over.

This day...

Nightmare would die.

* * *

><p><strong>(Horay for beginning <em>in media res<em>!)**

**(Horay also for one of my shortest introductory chapters ever!)**

**(New chapter will be presented a.s.a.p. For now, tell me what you think of the intro)**


	2. The Beginning of the End

**(AN: As you can see from the title, this story is not about Raphael. I have nothing against him, except for the fact that he doesn't realize that Amy is young and shy, which is why she has trouble opening up to the world. So his whole motivation is to change the whole world for her rather than to let her grow up like normal. How is that healthy? And if that weren't enough, once she becomes a vampire like he, he'll change the whole world just for her once more. So yeah, he's definitely got his problems - but aside from Talim, who in Soul Calibur _doesn't_ have problems? lol)**

**(Sorry for my little rant about Raphael.)**

**(Second, let me point out that this story will definitely be somewhat different than usual _Soul Calibur_ fan-fics. I have endeavored to further ground this SC tale in its historical context - the late 16th century. Some things will be different, but the essence of the story will be the same.)**

* * *

><p><strong>The Beginning of the End<strong>

_Seven Years Earlier..._**  
><strong>

Each of the bandits wore a black scarf around their necks.

It was their sign. Their emblem, the way they let their victims, the authorities and rival gangs know who they were.

But the bandits were very young. The youngest of them was ten years old, while the oldest was barely seventeen. They looked like something out of a fairy tale story about lost children hiding themselves away from the world so they would not have to know its evils.

But these boys knew the evils of the world, and they embraced them. In fact, they helped cause many of those evils.

Tonight, however, they were planning something else.

Something even more dastardly than anything they had ever done before.

"Eagle, report." one of the young men ordered.

Eagle was the alias of a young man, wearing the black scarf of the gang, who was their scout. He was thin, not built well for a heavy fight, and was the fastest runner.

"The company made camp a few hours ago." Eagle reported. "They're all exhausted, too weak to put up a real fight."

"Good," the lieutenant, Thunder, said with a grin on his face. "We'll simply drop in and take whatever valuables they have."

"How do we know they have valuables?"

"They're lords, Lightning." Thunder returned. "They must have something we can take that's worth at least a few duckets."

"Wait."

All eyes turned to the one who had spoken.

A young man with short blond hair, wearing a breastplate sat upon a stump at the head of the group. His sword was impaled in the ground at his side - it looked longer than he was tall.

"What good is it to kill retreating soldiers?" the youth asked. "What honor is there to be gained by fighting deserters?"

"Honor?" Thunder asked. "Since when does Schwarzwind care about honor?"

Laughs and cries of "Here here!" came from some of the others around their camp-fire.

"I knew it was a mistake to make you our chief," Thunder said to the young man. "You can hold your own with that sword, but you're afraid to do what needs to be done."

A single blue eye rose from out of the young man's face. He rose to his feet and drew his huge sword, bringing the blade up to Thunder's neck.

All the others became silent.

"Shut up, Thunder." the blond youth said. "Now explain yourself."

"Oh, you know how it goes," Thunder answered, trying to sound bold. "We kill those old men, take their goods, no one will miss them, especially since they're the ones running away from a fight."

The huge _zweihander_ sword dropped from the young man's neck.

"So what do you say? Huh, Dragon?"

A moment of uneasy silence passed between the group.

The young blond man named Dragon nodded his head.

* * *

><p>The moon was covered by the clouds of darkness.<p>

The perfect time for an ambush.

Without a sound, Schwarzwind descended upon the company, attacking and killing without mercy.

They never had a chance.

"This was almost too easy," Thunder said as he cleaned off blood from his blade.

"They didn't even put up a fight," Dragon said, turning to look about at the carnage waged.

It was nothing new. He had done mischief in the few years he spent with the Schwarzwind, so it was nothing new.

And yet something didn't seem right to him.

"Cowards never fight back." Thunder stated.

"You're right, old friend," Dragon continued, looking away. "They always run. These people...they didn't even flee when they knew we were upon them."

"What does it matter?"

Just then, the noise of two others dragging another along with them were heard.

"Look what we have here, Dragon!" one of the thugs said, tossing something to the ground that sounded like a man in armor.

"Their commander killed Lightning and Stormcloud," the second one added.

"The bastard!" growled Thunder. "C'mon, Drag, let's kill him."

"He's a defeated foe," Dragon said. "There's no honor to be gained in killing one without a weapon, without even the strength to fight back."

"He killed our boys!" Thunder shouted. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Silence filled the night-air, broken by the far-away cries of the soldiers being hunted down by the thugs.

"I knew it from the start," Thunder mocked, approaching Dragon. "You're too young, too weak to be our leader. Too soft, like a woman!"

Even in the dim light of the dead of night, the furious glow in Dragon's eyes was enough.

He wouldn't dare be called a coward.

He was the son of a great lord, a mighty warrior. How dare his honor be impugned by a scum like Thunder.

"Do you want to repeat that?" he asked slowly, through clenched teeth.

"You heard me," Thunder shot back. "That old man's a coward! He ran from a fight, and cowards might as well die. Cowardice is weakness, and there's no place in this world for the weak. Do it, Dragon! Kill him!"

Dragon hesitated.

He knew that to strike down an enemy in defeat was wrong. Every nerve of his being screamed against it.

But that was not the well-traveled road of choice in his mind. Too long he had been away, and for too long he found refuge with the Schwarzwind. They were like his family, and they meant more to him than the life of one man.

Even a defeated foe.

"You're wasting time, Dragon!" Thunder roared. "Do it..." He drew out his sword. "Or I kill you, take over the Schwarzwind and then kill him anyway."

A hand grasped the handle of a large _zweihander_ sword.

The air was sliced by an almighty _whoosh_ as the blade sliced through it like a knife through bread.

There was a cry.

A heavy slice of steel cutting through flesh, fat, skin and bone.

Silence.

A dull thud as a head fell upon the earth broke the air.

"Yeah, that's more like it." grinned Thunder. "C'mon now, get up there." He pointed to a stone that sat in the middle of the camp. "Show us that we've won."

Dragon walked over to the body, reached his hand down into the darkness, his fingers gripping a bunch of greasy hair in his hand.

He then made his way over to the stone and climbed atop it.

"Victory!" he cried out.

Cries of "_Sieg_", the German word for "victory" rang from the Schwarzwind as they heard their commander cry out the outcome of their ambush.

In mockery and betrayal of Dragon's victory, the clouds that hid the face of the Moon from this remote forest clearing in Germany dissipated.

Beams of white light shone down upon the scene of carnage.

Blood-stained swords, axes, maces, clubs and flails gleamed in the light. Ashen-faced bodies of the dead soldiers lay strewn across the ground, some lying in puddles of their own blood, piss and filth.

One blade, however, is stained with blood.

Blood that will never fully disappear.

The moonlight shines down upon the face in Dragon's hand.

It makes his knees weak, his hand quiver, his heart break asunder and vomit ooze out of the corner of his mouth in disgust.

The head he holds is a face he knows far too well.

The face of Frederick Schtauffen.

* * *

><p><strong>(Oh no! It has happened!)<br>**

**(Should I up the rating? I think I should, especially for later on. But I'm not sure.)**

**(Yes, "Dragon" is the titular character. What else would you expect from a group of rowdy, self-important 15-year-old thugs but corny names that have to do with _Schwarzwind_? His name comes from the whole association of his name with the hero of the _Nibelunglied_, his namesake, and the slaying of the dragon Fafnir. I'm still debating [against] having _SC: Legends _or _SC: Broken Destiny_ as part of the official canon of my story.)  
><strong>


	3. Descent into Madness

**(AN: We all have a little insanity inside us, it's whether we act upon that insanity that makes us "normal" or "lunatic." Some can go their whole lives, suppressing the madness inside them, living totally normal lives, dreading to let the world know what they really think. Others, it can take only the slightest push, the one wrong choice, to send them flying over the edge!)**

**(After all, how _do_ you describe what goes on inside the mind of an irresponsible 15-year-old, who already thinks that every single thing wrong in his life is the fault of everyone else but himself, as he goes insane after committing patricide? How can you bring that kind of insanity to life, make it real, make it plausible, make it believable? How do you do that, ladies and gentlemen?)**

**(Read and you just might see)**

* * *

><p><strong>Descent into Madness<strong>

A cry of profound horror, shock and disgust escaped Dragon's lips.

The head fell to the earth, the ghost of sadness still etched on Frederick's old, bloodied face.

Dragon did not even care that he had fallen on his back, his hands shaking violently before his face.

Red blood stained his hands and fingers.

_It was all a nightmare_, Dragon told himself. _That was it! This was all just the result of a late meal and too much time spent at the ale-house. Sooner or later he'd wake up and this would be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt to be nothing more than the worst bad dream he had ever had._

_But there was no mistaking it_, he reminded himself.

He was awake.

And he wished he weren't.

Off to the side, completely forsaken, Thunder chuckled in disbelief.

"What the hell's your problem, Drag?" he asked. "You killed him, not me."

_No_, Dragon told himself. _I couldn't kill him! Never!_

_How could I? He taught me everything I know about God, about life and about the sword. He always told me how proud he was of me, his only son. He gave me the world, and asked nothing more of me except that I return the love he gave me._

_And I did._

_So why is he dead?_

_It couldn't be me_, he reminded himself. _He loved me more than life itself, and I loved him, just as much as I loved mother._

_And it was death for slaying father or mother._

_But I didn't kill him!_

**_I didn't!_**

_You killed him, not me!_

Dragon rose to his feet in anger, dragging his blood-stained blade up from the ground.

"You saw it happen yourself," Thunder reminded Dragon haughtily. "His blood's on your hands, not mine!"

"You're lying." Dragon said, his voice trembling behind his clenched teeth.

Thunder pointed to the _zweihander_, held in Dragon's shaking hands. "Look at your fucking sword!"

"**YOU'RE LYING!**"

It was only quick thinking by Thunder that told him to dodge the huge swing of Dragon's blade.

"You killed him, Thunder!" growled Dragon. "And now you're gonna pay for it!"

"Look at yourself, Drag!" Thunder cried, reaching for a shield to defend himself from the huge _zweihander_. "You're raving like a lunatic!"

Another fierce swing of the _zweihander_ sent Thunder rolling on the ground, barely saving himself from the deadly strike.

Thunder picked up an empty keg that was nearby and threw it at Dragon.

In fear for his life, he drew out his dagger and ran screaming toward the youth with blond hair.

But swinging that heavy _zweihander_ took a lot out of Dragon, and he couldn't recover after shattering the keg.

He had to run.

Dropping his sword, he made a mad dash toward a group of tents that were being raided by the other thugs.

Still screaming like a madman, Thunder took a fagot of wood out of the soldiers' camp-fire and started setting the tents aflame, igniting the whole camp on fire.

"Go away! Get lost!" shouted Thunder, more out of fear than anger. "Never come back here again! You're mad!"

Another angry cry was heard.

Two iron-clad feet came flying at Thunder's chest as Dragon dropped the bigger lad to the ground with his kick.

Thunder was already on his feet.

But Dragon didn't need to be on his feet to have the upper-hand against this tall fool.

After all, Dragon wore the armor.

A fist connected with Thunder's chin, sending him staggering back, reeling from the pain.

The larger lad recovered from the blow and charged again, sword in hand ready to put an end to Dragon's madness.

A heavy iron rod struck his mouth, and several teeth fell loosely out of his bloody lips.

The hilt of a _zweihander_ was in Dragon's hands.

Another strike from Dragon's iron-clad boots sent Thunder sprawling upon the grass once again.

Dragon was now standing directly over the fallen body of his lieutenant.

His one-time friend.

"Mad, am I?" Dragon asked, his voice shaking as he spoke.

"Traitor!" groaned Thunder, spitting blood and teeth up at Dragon, but falling very short of the target. "You'll pay for what you've done!"

The point of the _zweihander_ raised up above its victim.

One swift, gravity-propelled motion later...

Dragon's _zweihander_ impaled the youth through both of his lungs, with the point piercing the heart.

Thunder choked and gagged on his own blood as the last seconds of his life flowed out before him, just beyond recall.

His head fell to the ground.

By now, all the others were looking at Dragon in disgust and fear.

A single iron-clad glove reached up to his throat and tore away the black scarf.

It floated upon the windless air, coming to rest atop the puddle of blood bubbling up from the wound in Thunder's chest.

* * *

><p>He kept running.<p>

There was nothing else for it.

Fatigued from a long battle in heavy armor, wielding a long-sword, and outnumbered against the Schwarzwind.

There was no hope in victory.

Only a coward would run from a fight.

That was what Thunder said, his reason why they deserved to die.

Those soldiers.

His father.

_It's all Thunder's fault_, he thought. _He always wanted control of the gang. I was the stronger fighter, but he was older and bigger. He wanted to rule, so he called me a coward._

_He set me up!_

_But I didn't kill him!_

_I couldn't have!_

_I loved him too much!_

Dragon kept on running, heedless of his aching muscles, crying out in protest against the fatigue of his battle, the weight of his armor and the strain he put upon himself as he ran farther, deeper into the woods.

There must have been something else going on!

It was the only explanation that made sense. It was dark, he couldn't see much of anything until the moon came out. That much was certain. He couldn't even see himself, much less his father. And suddenly he was up on the top of the rock, holding his father's severed head.

It was a set-up, he was dead certain of that. Someone knew enough about him to bring Frederick into his path, kill him and then make it look like he, Dragon, had done it.

But who could have done it? Everyone in the Schwarzwind knew him as 'Dragon', only he and his family knew his true name.

His father surely made enemies. All powerful lords made enemies somewhere, people jealous of his power, of his wealth, of his land, of his beautiful wife. His father was a great man, but surely there were others - lesser men, weaker men, jealous men - who would profit from his downfall. And what better way to further orchestrate their rise to power than to accuse his own son of patricide?

How far did this forest go?

_As deep as this murder plot went,_ he told himself.

For surely a plot it must be. Someone in the Schwarzwind had been paid off by one of Frederick's enemies to plan that cowardly assault. It wasn't him, he had protested it from the very start.

He pretty much guessed that it was Thunder who orchestrated the killing.

But who killed Frederick Schtauffen?

Dragon's foot was caught on a stone and he fell forward into a small creek of water.

He lifted his wet, soaked head out of the bank.

But that was all the strength he had left.

He had been running for too long, he had to rest.

He had to stop...

He had to think...

There was someone else in the camp that night.

That was the only believable explanation. Someone else was there, someone who wanted Frederick dead, but could escape without notice as soon as the Moon rose from behind the clouds.

There was some devil-work afoot, that much he knew.

Dragon looked down at the reflection in the water before him.

The face of Frederick.

"Father..." he gasped at his reflection. "I swear on my life, I will hunt down whoever killed you. I will avenge your death."

His face was now burning with tears.

"I swear before God and all the holy saints," Dragon said, lifting his head towards the full moon above. "**The man who killed my father deserves to die!**"

His throat was dry and raw.

Still he swore.

His muscles ached from over-use.

Still he rose up, and continued on his way.

The youthful Dragon was dead.

A man of responsibility was born out of his grave, one Frederick would be proud of.

Siegfried set out on his quest for vengeance.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Yes, there's loads of irony. It's not meant to be funny irony, more like tragic irony. Hopefully you can see how and why it happens later on in the story)<strong>

**(What did you think of my take on the introduction to our main character? There's much more ahead, so don't worry. I will see to it that he receives due justice. In the mean-time, tell me what you think of this so far in the review section)**


	4. The Legend

**(AN: Thank you for the reviews on this story so far. Let me state that I have noticed my habit of using one-lines rather than huge paragraphs. That is both intentional and unintentional. Intentional because I will sometimes use a single line to attract attention to one specific thing that is going on, or to build up dramatic tension. Unintentional because sometimes I don't have enough words to make lengthy paragraphs, or, because I'm using notepad, the paragraphs get smaller when converted to FF.)**

**(This took me a little bit of a while to formulate, since I've been wondering how to get our hero knowledgeable about the Sword. This, I believe, is the most logical and canonical explanation.)**

* * *

><p><strong>The Legend<strong>

An ale-house somewhere in Munich. Young men shirking their daily duties were there, spending hard-earned duckets on hard drink. Old timers sat about in small groups, talking about the old wars and how good the youngsters had it. Several gypsies were peddling their wares to a customer who looked slightly interested in what they were discussing. A tramp was trying to get the lovely bar-maid to give him credit for his next drink.

Off by himself sat a young man, staring at the tankard of ale before him in silence. The bottom of the jar was his only friend these days. It was the only one who understood him, who could take away all the pain.

Pain. That was what Siegfried Schtauffen felt. Pain that he was sitting here, idling, rotting, wasting away in some pub in Bavaria while somewhere out there his father's murderer roamed free, alive and unpunished. Guilt it was, more like, that stung Siegfried's mind. Guilt that after five months he had done nothing. Or was it the guilt of his conscience telling him to stop the charade and admit that he had lied to himself?

But he would not listen. For if he was wrong, then he was guilty not only of patricide but also of lying. He was not an evil man, he kept telling himself, but a victim of the times. Weren't we all, he mused? Just leaves being blown about on the winds of change, powerless to direct our course...

* * *

><p>Just then, the door opened and five or six gentlemen walked into the tavern, giving a "<em>Guten tag<em>" or "_Salut_" to the bar-maid.

"Where are you gents off to today?" the woman asked as she began filling one of the tankards from a large, over-turned keg behind the counter.

"We're _Landsknechts_, us." one of the men said. He was obviously their leader, for he was older and bore more scars than the others. He was slightly barrel-chested, but his arms looked strong enough to uproot a tree with his bare-hands.

"Mercenaries," she stated, placing the full tankard on the counter. The closest of the mercenaries picked it up and buried his bearded face in the white, frothy beer.

"We've been hired, by the Duke of Ostrheinsburg," the oldest one continued. "We're on our way to his _schloss_ now as we speak. Just thought we'd stop by and have a drink."

The bar-maid continued with pouring the rest of the drinks for the_ Landsknechts_. From his corner, however, the young man was paying attention to what they were talking about. His attention was piqued by who they were going to serve.

The Duke of Ostrheinsburg.

"Pardon me," he said to the _Landsknechts_ as he sat himself closer to them. The eldest of them eyed the youngster in a very condescending manner.

"May I help you, boy?" he asked.

"I heard you were hired into service by the Duke of Ostrheinsburg." Siegfried answered.

"You should know better than to listen to the words of your elders." the warrior said, turning back to his tankard.

Siegfried walked over to the gentleman and pointed to the sword on his back.

"That's a pretty little knife you have there, boy," the _Landsknecht_ said. "But do you know how to use it?"

"Yes." Siegfried replied, a little harsher than he had intended. "Now tell me about the Duke."

"He's the greatest swordsman in Christendom east of the Rhine," the old man said. "It is said that no man alive can match him in a sword-fight."

"There's more to it than just that, though." one of the other _Landsknechts_ said. "It's that sword of his. Something about it makes stronger...better than any sword forged by man."

"It's not the size of the blade, Johan," a third mercenary said. "It's how you wield it."

"That's not what I've heard," the _Landsknecht_ named Johan returned. "It's been reported that some swords are more than just pieces of metal."

"Oh, for the love of God!" exclaimed the third one, rolling his eyes.

"It's true!"

"Johan, do you really believe anything that floats into that brain of yours?" the third one asked.

"Surely you've heard the rumors about Sir Stefan's Grimblade," Johan continued. "There's no way that can be any normal blade."

"I've heard the rumors."

"And?"

"It's myth, old wives' tales," the third one obstinately replied. "Fairy tales, just like the Sword of Heroes."

"What was that again?"

The three mercenaries turned to the young man.

"Listen to Johan, little boy," the obstinate _Landsknecht_ said. "He'll tell you anything and say it's the truth! I'm returning to my ale."

"I've got to check on the men." the eldest said. He then finished his mug and walked out of the tavern.

The warrior known as Johan turned to Siegfried. He was at least old enough to be the youth's father, but there was a kind of friendly light in his eyes, more akin to that of an older brother or a goodly uncle.

"Rub up here, son," Johan said. "I'll buy you a drink and tell you all about it."

Siegfried nodded and sat next to the seasoned warrior, while he purchased another round for the two of them.

"First, tell me," Johan began as he pushed the mug to Siegfried. "Where are you from?"

"Ober-Getzenberg." Siegfried replied. "Yourself?"

"Constance." Johan drank from his cup.

Siegfried followed suit. It was damnable bitter, like pure gall. But anything was better than the memories, the fear, the guilt, the tragedy...

_The truth._

"Now," Siegfried said, slamming his tankard on the bar. "Tell me about this Sword of Heroes."

"It's a sword," Johan said. "Believed to be the strongest weapon in all the land. Thousands of warriors have been driven to death or madness in search of the blade, giving up everything only to have their dreams turn to ashes."

"But is it real?" Siegfried asked.

"I've only heard the stories about it," Johan said.

Siegfried paused. The thought of it was enough to make his head spin. The strongest weapon in all the world...a fitting way to kill the bastard who slew his father. The last five months he had spent scouring the lands, hoping to find the one who killed Frederick Schtauffen...and going over the events of that night in his head.

There was no doubt in Siegfried's mind that the person who killed his father was not only clever at coming and going without being seen, but had the ability to plant images in his own head, making him - Siegfried - think that it was he who had killed his own father.

To defeat such a foe...it would require the greatest weapon the world has ever known.

"Take me with you," Siegfried said. "I'm pretty good with a sword. I want to serve Sir Stefan with you."

Johan chuckled. "You sound like my sons. They all want to follow in their father's foot-steps: be big, brave warriors, fighting the enemies of the Emperor on any battlefield." He then turned to the young lad. "I think we have a place open." He nodded. "Very well..." He turned to the bar-maid and dropped a few coins in her hand before turning back to the young man. "You shall come with me, be part of my_ tross_. After you've proven yourself, you will be a _fähnriche_ in my company."

He patted the young man on the back, who smiled in return. Whether it was because of the older man's kindness or because of the indulgence of beer he had imbibed, Siegfried could not comprehend which one it was, but followed after the gentleman.

"What's your name, sir?" he asked.

"Johan Dürer, lad. And yourself?"

"Siegfried Schtauffen."

At the mention of Schtauffen, the old man paused, looking with a crinkled forehead out at the noon-day town. He shook his head and continued walking on, with Siegfried at his tail.

* * *

><p><strong>(Yes, that is indeed <em>the<em> Johan Dürer. It might be bending canon, to have him meet Siegfried this early on in the story, but his bio on the _Soul Calibur _wiki has that he was also a mercenary, so I decided to make him a _landsknecht_ as well.)**

**(I've used German liberally when it comes to Siegfried, and intend to do so again. _Fähnriche_ is an ensign rank and the _tross_ it the baggage train that follows a _landsknecht_ company about - women, children, servants, etc.)**

**(Speaking of German, that leads me to another issue. The name for _Ostrheinsburg_ seems to be made up of several German words: _osten_ which means "east", a variant of _Rhine_ and _burg_. This would lead one to assume that Ostrheinsburg is located "east of the Rhine". However, the name for Austria in German is _Österreich_, which might mean that Ostrheinsburg is located, not in Germany, but in Austria [which is also east of the Rhine river]. Please tell me where you want me to have Ostrheinsburg: east Germany or Austria. It's sort of important, because that will be a major locale in the coming chapters.)**


	5. A Valuable Collection

**(AN: In keeping with the terrible vagueness of the _Soul Calibur_ series, I have decided to locate Ostrheinsburg on the _Donau_ River [the German word for the Danube River], which is both in Germany and Austria. Off-subject, _Donau_ seems to be close to the German word _Donner_, which is their name for the Norse God of Thunder. So is the Danube Thor's river?)**

**(Here we have a little bit of an introduction to Sir Stefan [which could be a relative of the historical Sir Stefan Bathory, another reason for me to make Ostrheinsburg in Austria]. Speaking of historical characters, I don't think I can reference them in ff stories [ergo "the Oda lord" in _Yoshimitsu: Angel of Vengeance_ rather than Oda Nobunaga], so if I refer to historical characters, I will refer to them by various appellations related to them [ie. "The Virgin Queen" or other such] rather than their names. Hopefully you can catch where I do)**

**(Now enjoy)**

* * *

><p><strong>A Valuable Collection<strong>

Tonight would be the last night the _Landsknechts_ would make camp. Tomorrow, they would be in Ostrheinsburg. Tonight, however, they made their camp in a clearing of a forest. A sea of tents housed the five hundred warriors and their families and servants. Several fires were set up, making the clearing to outshine the moon up above, as she looked down upon their gathering.

Upon the one whose sin did not escape her eyes.

Siegfried and Johan were on their way back to their tent. It was too dark for practicing, and they were both winded from a lengthy day of sparring.

Two young men were dancing around the fire, their _katzbalgers_ striking each other in their sword-play.

"Hans, Karl! _Auf Wache_!" the father shouted, drawing his _katzbalger_.

The two lads turned their short-swords from each other and defended themselves against Johan's attack. In a few short seconds, both of the young men were soon pushed to the ground before their father.

"Well done," he said with a smile. "You're getting better."

He sheathed his _katzbalger_ and held out his hand to his two sons, lifting them up one by one in turn.

"If you ever need someone to spar with, Siegfried," he said back to the young man behind him. "My sons will always be there. They're eager to find someone to practice with the sword."

Siegfried nodded.

Hans, the younger one, walked over to Siegfried and gave a look at his sword.

"Quite a blade you have," he said with a smile. "I'll have to try hard to avoid hitting your blade in battle."

"We're sharp-shooters," Karl stated, in regard to Siegfried's blank expression. "Me an' Hans back up Father with our arquebus on the field."

"You'll be hard to miss," Hans stated. "With a huge sword like that."

"You know what they say about gents with long swords." Karl stated with a knavish smile.

"What do they say?" Siegfried asked.

"That they're usually lacking in other things, if you know what I mean." Karl gave Siegfried a nudge on the shoulder with his elbow.

"Alright, you heathens." Johan said in a jesting manner. "Clean yourselves up."

"He's right, it's time for supper."

This speaker was a woman, about fifteen years or so younger than Johan, who was his wife. Behind her skirts trailed a young girl, still a child, who obviously was her daughter. Frau Dürer brought food for their family, courtesy of the servants, and they began eating.

"Join us, Siegfried." Johan said.

The young _Landsknecht_ nodded and joined their fire.

"What will it be like?" he asked. "Ostrheinsburg."

"It's amazing." Johan said. "I've been there once, a long time ago. It's a magnificent thing. A stonewall fence surrounds the largest keep I've ever seen. It straddles the Donau River like I've never seen any fortress do before. A single island of stone stands in the midst of this giant fortress, where the keep is located. It's rumored the greatest Italian artisans designed the stained glass windows of the chapel: an image of St. Michael defeating the Devil. It's truly inspiring."

"What of Sir Stefan?" Siegfried asked.

"He's a good man," Johan answered. "A fine lord."

_Everyone would say that about their lord_, Siegfried thought. Whoever paid the _Landsknechts_ the most would get their praise. That was the way things worked, even in this time when lords could execute belligerents for less. Siegfried did not believe in such lies: other lords were weak, cruel, cowardly. They were not known as _Der Wackere Ritter_.

Like Frederick was known among the people.

"Tell me more about the Sword of Heroes." Siegfried inquired.

"What I told you is all I know." Johan answered. "Although..."

He paused, turning instead to the fire.

"Yes?" Siegfried inquired.

"Albrecht knows more about it than I do." Johan answered.

"Where is he?"

"He's at his tent, five tents down from us." Johan returned, pointing towards the camp-fire in question.

Siegfried nodded, then rose up from his place and walked off toward the tent.

"Don't you want to finish your food?" Frau Dürer asked.

"_Nein_." Siegfried answered.

There was no time for food when vengeance called. If there was anything, any rumor, any hint, or even a whisper of the Sword of Heroes, Siegfried could go without food, without water, without sleep, without family, without companionship - without anything that made life worth living. He could bear to live without anything, as long as it brought him a little closer to vengeance.

Closer to retribution.

Siegfried saw the tent at the edge of the camp-fire. It was very easy to spot the man. There were no coat-of-arms upon his tent, or any banners at all posted around it, and the shield there was sitting by the fabric was old with no visible emblem. At the front there sat an old man, drinking quietly by himself. He was the most unique, for he did not dress in the outlandish clothing typical of _Landsknechts_.

"_Herr_ Albrecht?" Siegfried asked.

"_Ja_." the old man returned.

"Do you have a moment?" he asked again.

"If I didn't, do you think I would still be alive?" Albrecht's tone was very sarcastic.

Siegfried noticed that Albrecht had not even turned to look at him while he spoke.

"Uh, _Herr_ Dürer says that you know about the Sword of Heroes."

Still Albrecht did nothing to acknowledge that someone was speaking to him.

"It's a myth, boy. Just like Siegfried Dragon-slayer or _Rosenrot_."

"I refuse to believe that, _Herr_ Albrecht." Siegfried retorted, his voice breaking slightly.

"Go home to your parents, _junge._" Albrecht called back.

"My father is dead," Siegfried almost shouted. "I need that Sword so I can kill the bastard who killed my father."

"Any sword would do." the old man returned.

"No!" Siegfried shouted angrily. "Someone with power killed my father, someone who filled my mind with images...false images..."

"Sounds like a witch." came Albrecht's grumpy answer.

"Yes! And only a weapon of supreme power could ever kill this bastard."

Only the sounds of the camp, and the chirping of insects broke the silence between the old Albrecht and the young Siegfried.

A sigh came from Albrecht and he muttered something about being too old.

"What was that?"

The old man grumbled and turned towards Siegfried.

"Sit your ass down, _junge_." he grumbled.

Siegfried did as he was instructed. In the faint glare of the light of the camp-fire he could see something of Albrecht's face. Wrinkles upon wrinkles lined his scarred face, his many-times over broken nose and cut places in his long, white beard. Even the Scottish pastor, known for his vehement hatred of the Queen of Scots, could not have had a longer beard.

"There's a story," he began. "A very old story, older possibly than the Bible itself. It's said there was a king, a very powerful king, who created a sword that he used to bring peace to the whole world. His own son stole the sword from him in the dead of the night and tried to become king. But the power-hungry king would suffer no rival - he killed his own son."

Siegfried was visibly disturbed by what he heard. All the memories that it entailed were just too much. He wanted to forget it all, forget everything that tied him to his past, to _Schwarzwind_, and to that fateful night.

After all, he hadn't killed his father. He was innocent...

Wasn't he?

"It's said," Albrecht continued. "That when the blade tasted the blood of the prince, something happened. It became alive, as if it were a living sword. But it was an evil life, a corrupted life, one that destroyed life and all that came in contact with it, as sure as the eye that rests on the living blade of the Sword of Heroes - _**Soul Edge**_."

Siegfried felt a chill rush down his body at the mention of the name. His hands shook slightly and his knees became weak. He now had a name to put to the blade he longed for, he needed, he yearned to find...

_Soul Edge_.

* * *

><p>It was even more awe-inspiring than Johan Dürer had made it out to be.<p>

The city of Ostrheinsburg straddled the Donau River like Babylon of old upon the Euphrates, or Constantinople upon the Hellespont. Walls thirty feet high and thick, heavy bridges that could easily fit three wagons traveling abreast crossed the river as if it were nothing more than a pond. Built in the ages before the discovery of gunpowder, it was made to prevent Saracen assault via the Donau River. Unfortunately, it did little against the Vikings, who could take their ships over land, quite by-passing the castle altogether. Even the Vikings dared not attack Ostrheinsburg: its walls were so massive that it looked like no human hand could ever possibly have created it.

The throne room was austere. A high vaulted ceiling with many colored banners bearing the emblem of Sir Stefan's house looked down upon a hall lined with suits of armor. Each of them bore a shield and some kind of weapon: swords, axes, maces, flails, pikes, spears, anything. If, by reason of some kind of sorcery, these suits of armor came to life, then no assassin could ever even hope of reaching Sir Stefan alive by approaching him through the main way. A dais sat upon the far side of the throne room, looking towards the back of the hall, which had a stained-glass window that reflected the light of the setting sun. A crimson carpet, frilled and bordered with gilded thread, poured down the dais and ended at the far end of the hall.

Upon the dais there was a throne, and upon that throne sat Sir Stefan. He was rather young, only ten years or so younger than Herr Dürer: well, in an age when people rarely lived past forty, it was not uncommon to see many people between twenty and thirty, even in positions of power. Upon his lap there was a large sheath.

"_Wilkommen_," he said in greeting to Johan Dürer, the leader of the _Landsknechts. _"I trust your journey went well."_  
><em>

"Indeed, my lord." Herr Dürer answered. "I have brought with me five hundred _landsknechts_, all of them ready to do battle at your command."

"Impressive," Sir Stefan stated. "I hope this portion you present before me are not all there is of your five hundred _landsknechts_."

"Nay, my lord."

The duke and Herr Dürer continued talking, mostly about this and that and how the _Landsknechts_ would be housed in the castle.

Siegfried, however, was not paying attention. His eyes were on the walls of the palace. Cold, austere stone walls greeted his gaze, four on all sides. Large wooden placards hung upon the walls. Fastened to those placards were many various swords of all shapes and sizes imaginable.

_Surely the Duke is not foolish enough to keep Soul Edge here_, Siegfried thought. _If he was smart enough to call it something else - "Grimblade" - to dismay the curious, then he would not stoop to having his prized weapon, the Sword of Heroes, hanging on the wall like a deer-head trophy._

"Do you like what you see?" Sir Stefan said.

Siegfried suddenly noticed that he was the one being addressed.

"Uh...y-yes, my lord." he answered.

"I am something of a collector of swords," the Duke said, walking over to Siegfried. "What I have here is quite impressive, if I say so myself. Like this one..." He pointed to a sword on the left-hand wall. "A real _macana_ from the New World. Not very imposing, a wooden club like that: but the black stone in the head can strike off the head of a horse, so they say.

"And this one..." He pointed across the room to the right-hand wall. "A Saracen _scimitar_, made of Damascus steel. Believed to be wielded by the Muslim-lord of Egypt and Syria in the King's Crusade. It's said that a blade of Damascus steel does not blunt, but only sharpens with each battle."

"I see." Siegfried commented.

"This, however, is the crown jewel of my collection!" Sir Stefan said, with an obvious swell in his chest. He pointed to his throne, where, upon the wall behind it, there hung a huge sword that looked very similar to a _zweihander_. Its blade was broad, and blue-ish runes were etched upon the fuller. "This is Gram, the blade believed to be wielded by the legendary Siegfried Dragon-slayer. I'm sure you've heard of the legend."

Siegfried nodded.

"If I may inquire, my lord," he asked. "Where is Grimblade? Does not a blade of such reputation deserve to be up here as well?"

Sir Stefan laughed. "It deserves no less honor, but I would not trust anyone with it other than myself. It is with me all the time." He patted the sheath at his side.

_Well_, _at least I know where it's at_, Siegfried thought.

"I like you, warrior." Sir Stefan said. "What's your name?"

"Siegfried Schtauffen."

"Named after the Dragon-slayer, no doubt!" he commented with pride. His brow then furrowed in thought, and Siegfried shifted uncomfortably. What if Sir Stefan had heard about his father?

"I knew your father," he said at last. "A good man among good men. He sided with the people during the Peasant's War, God rest his soul." He turned to Siegfried. "You do your father honor by serving me well, Siegfried."

The blond youth bowed in respect.

But he did not look into the eyes of Sir Stefan. Now that he knew where Soul Edge was, he knew what had to be done. Any lesser man would shirk from such a responsibility, saying that it would be nothing more than high treason.

_My only responsibility is to avenge my father_, Siegfried reasoned.

It would all be worth it in the end, to avenge his father's murder...

To forget...

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Voila! Here is the chapter!)<strong>

**(Horay for using German, a lot! And "the Scottish preacher" is, of course, John Knox. As I said above, I will refer to historical characters by their appellations ['the Muslim-lord of Egypt and Syria' being Saladin]. The _macana_ is a Spanish name for an actual Aztec weapon.)**

**(Lastly, let me state that Dürer has two sons [named Hans and Karl in my story] and a daughter according to the canon of the _Soul_ series. She might be old enough to be in SCV, though I can't say for certain if she will be.)  
><strong>


	6. East Meets West

**(AN: In an obvious nod to my other work, _Yoshimitsu: Angel of Vengeance_, I am including a character who appeared in that story here in this one. After all, the lore states that he was at Ostrheinsburg, with the attacking army.)**

**(The name and title of the Spanish lord who is attacking Ostrheinsburg have been changed to match the actual historical title, and I have given him motive as well.)**

**(Now enjoy!)**

* * *

><p><strong>East Meets West<strong>

_One year later..._

Just another job.

That was all everything had been to Mitsurugi since he lost the trail of the Sword of Heroes. Going from battlefield to battlefield like a falcon, all the while becoming stronger and stronger, more and more frustrated with his inability to find a solution to his great problem.

The _Tanegashima_. He was serving the lord of the Oda clan that day at Nagashino, and witnessed the destruction a simple weapon that seemed like a toy could cause in the hands of man. The age of the sword was over...

Not while Heishiro Mitsurugi was alive. He was longing for a great challenge to test his skills. That was all he needed to defeat the _Tanegashima_: the ultimate weapon.

This was what brought him to Andrea Trastámara, the Margrave of Barcelona.

A religious fanatic like many in Europe. Mitsurugi had seen his fair share of monks from Europe crucified in his homeland, in mockery of the way their Christ-god had died. From those Shinto shrines he had seen desecrated, he believed that the Europeans would kill those who did not worship the Christ-god in their lands just as the _daimyos_ slaughtered the Christian monks back in Japan.

Not that he feared reprisal from any authorities. The _daimyo_ of Echigo, who called himself _Bishamonten_, once stated that Mitsurugi was worth ten thousand men on the field of battle. The Oda lord also commented that not even the Christian Devil could stand against Mitsurugi in a duel with swords.

If these Christians brought their armies to arrest him, he would send back their severed heads.

For now, however, he was fighting for these Christians in one of their own holy wars. Margrave Andrea had declared war against some Protestant lord in Germany and was sending an army to attack his castle. The large number of soldiers would make anyone believe that victory was assured to the Margrave.

Numbers did not matter to Mitsurugi. He heard of the Protestant prince they were up against, called one of the greatest swordsmen in the whole world. Rumors abounded about his sword, Grimblade. It made him smile inside. If anyone could provide Heishiro Mitsurugi with a good challenge...

It would be Sir Stefan, duke of Ostrheinsburg.

* * *

><p>Cannon-fire struck the walls of the castle.<p>

All were being rushed down towards the gates for the battle. Soldiers and men-at-arms, knights and mercenaries rushed to fulfill the duties of their lord. Ostrheinsburg would not fall on their watch.

The company of _Landsknechts_ would take the lead the attack. Johan Dürer, now an _Oberste_, had command of the largest and most powerful force of seasoned warriors, doppelsöldners, all of them possessing long pikes and heavy axes: his own _berserkergang_, as it were. Siegfried Schtauffen, now a _Hauptmann_, led his own _fähnlein_ as the advance-guard. He would go first with two or three _zweihanders_ at his side, while the pikes would follow on behind, with Hans and Karl Dürer providing covering fire from the hill above.

Many of them prayed to God that the wind would be on their side.

They all knew what would happen if there wasn't enough wind and the gunpowder started to fill the battlefield.

As usual, the doppelsöldners were first on the field: they didn't get paid double for waiting for back-up to be there. They went in first, got the job done and got double-pay for it.

Today, Siegfried's _fähnlein_ would be the back-up.

He stood before the charge of the Spanish soldiers. Beneath his helmet, he could taste the saltiness of sweat upon his lips. He was sweating beneath this heavy armor. Were it not for the leather padding he was wearing, the coat of mail would be digging into his skin with a thousand powerful o-rings of steel. His own breathing echoed through his helmet, ringing in his ears.

Behind him was the army: men-at-arms, soldiers, guards of the castle, knights on horse-back, his comrades in his_ fähnlein_, Hans and Karl Dürer, now like brothers to him, with their matchlocks ready for the first shots.

His heart was beating in his chest, pounding against the unrelenting wall of steel that protected his vitals from the enemy. He knew his duty: go in first, hack off the pike-heads, then kill whatever got in your way. He had done it in several battles before, every time brushing off what he saw.

Those he killed with his blade were nothing to him, a means to an end.

The end being vengeance.

With a loud roar, Siegfried leveled his _zweihander_ parallel with the ground and started running towards the enemy. His breath roared in his ears like the breath of a dragon, the metal-plates of his armor clanking loudly against each other as he ran as fast as he could, his feet making heavy foot-falls in the dry earth.

The sound of a cheer rose up from behind him as the other_ Landsknechts_ charged after him, battle-thirsty and eager for glory.

Arrows hissed into the sky above them.

He didn't have time to shout for them to raise their shields. There was no time to stop, he was leading the charge.

Just a few feet more...

With all his might, he swung his sword in a huge arc directly in front of him.

Pike and spear-heads broke off like dead tree-branches as his great _zweihander_ rendered them useless.

He moved on to the next batch of pike-men to his right, swinging his sword around him like a great windmill. No one dared get too close to him, or else risk losing a head or limb to his great, swinging sword. Pike-heads and spear-tips were now littering the ground, with the occasional arm or head following suit.

One warrior, however, pushed his way through the advancing crowd, eager to fight the _Landsknechts_ one-on-one.

Siegfried Schtauffen got sight of this warrior. He was a young man, about six years older than he, dressed in very strange armor. His skin was browned with exposure to the sun - he was obviously a farmer once - though it was still too pale, almost yellow-ish, to be any European he, Siegfried had ever seen. The head was adorned with black hair, tied together at the back. A bit of hair was growing upon his face and slanted brown eyes looked back at him.

In his hand was a weapon so small and so thin-looking that Siegfried almost laughed.

This must be one of those people from Asia, or even the mysterious islands beyond the China Sea.

Without another thought, Siegfried raised his blade up and swung it towards the stranger man from the east. The deceptively thin blade rose up, holding off the huge _zweihander_ as the dams in Holland did the waves of the sea. Siegfried was floored by this: how could a simple blade, and one that looked too small to be of any real use, be stronger than his mighty _zweihander_?

Again he swung, but the warrior from the east was too fast, and his blade blocked or parried each blow. How could he move so fast in that armor?

Now the warrior struck, and Siegfried barely had time to raise his _zweihander_ in defense. He was not skilled at dueling without his _katzbalger_, but he would make due without it. However, the raw strength this eastern warrior possessed was so great that Siegfried felt that he was an anvil in a blacksmith's shop...

And this warrior was the hammer.

A cry alerted Siegfried to immediate danger from behind. Quickly he changed the direction of his blade and thrust it backward, impaling the charging Spaniard on the huge blade. Taking up his advantage, the eastern warrior charged at Siegfried. But he was no fool when it came to the use of a blade. With a quick thrust, he pulled the blade out of the enemy and struck the eastern warrior with the pommel.

It was enough to get him off-guard, but not enough to seriously disorient him. He was back at it again, lunging with a sweep of his thin sword. Siegfried stepped aside, barely missing the blow. His feet were steady, enough to make another huge assault against his smaller opponent.

A great misnomer since the eastern man was actually an inch taller than Siegfried.

His feet sinking into the earth, Siegfried swung in a huge arc with his _zweihander_. The eastern warrior dug his blade into the ground, perpendicular to the ground, and dug in.

The heavy blade struck the smaller one, showering the ground with sparks as two great strengths refused to be broken.

The brown eyes of the eastern man were burning with a hungry fire unlike anything Siegfried had ever seen. His strength was unlike anything Siegfried had ever encounter: he doubted that even the strong men of lore could have equaled this warrior in a one-on-one battle. And here he was, a mere lad of sixteen, against this titan of a man.

He was not even injured, and already Siegfried feared that he could not make it out of this encounter alive.

The battlefield exploded with the sound of guns exploding.

The eastern warrior looked up, the ghost of consternation in his eyes.

Siegfried was smiling. Hans and Karl had come to save the day, and his ass in the process.

Letting his right foot dig into the dirt a little, Siegfried kicked up a cloud of dust into the eastern warrior's face.

A cowardly tactic, but it was enough. He could escape now.

Another cowardly thing to do, but he had no real fealty to Sir Stefan. He was not obliged to serve him, to fight his battles to the very last.

His only desire, his only concern, was vengeance.

That meant more to him that life, honor, than God Himself.

* * *

><p><strong>(Horay for <em>Soul Calibur<em>'s most bad-ass character! I thought that it was in-character to have him not really give a damn about reprisals from religious authorities, since he's literally a one-man army. That statement from Nobunaga Oda is my explanation for one of Mitsurugi's victory quotes ["Not even the king of Hell could stand against my blade!"] In keeping with his bad-assery, I have it that neither of them win the battle but that Siegfried survives through a cowardly tactic. Remember, his insane obsession with "vengeance" means that, to him, the end justifies the means.)**

**(I know it doesn't seem possible for a _zweihander_ not to slice a _katana_ in half. But considering _Soul Calibur: IV_ had it that not even a lightsaber could could through a _katana_, I'd say that what I have here is pretty realistic in comparison.)**


	7. A Coward's Defense

**(AN: Here's our next chapter. Sorry if things are a bit slow, but I have one more chapter to publish before I've finished with the first chronicle. Once again, I've got character creation to do, especially with our main character.)**

**(Sorry if I'm making a lot of religious references in my story. That is historical, since in this time, even in Protestant Europe, religion was still a _very_ big deal. At the very least, the references help to settle this story in its historic setting.)**

**(Now here's the next chapter. It's short, but it's another _big_, important turning point in Siegfried's story.)**

* * *

><p><strong>A Coward's Defense<strong>

There would be no soldiers in the halls of the castle. They were all at the front, giving their lives for Sir Stefan. It stung Siegfried's conscience, for he knew exactly what his father had said. A warrior was to swear total fealty to their lord, and never retreat from a battle.

And here he was, running through the castle-halls like a scared child. He was betraying everything his father had told him in his quest to avenge his death. He might as well had been the one to have killed him himself.

_No_, Siegfried thought. _Put those thoughts out of your head! You did **not** kill your own father! It was someone else, someone who can only be killed with the Sword of Heroes, which is in the possession of Sir Stefan. If he had to betray his lord to avenge his father, if he had to play the coward to avenge his father..._

_So be it._

But the other part of his mind, the part that loved his father, that desired to be like him, wouldn't stay quiet. What he was doing was wrong in so many ways. He was playing the part of Judas, he knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt. It was wrong in so many ways.

He couldn't think clearly. He needed to find some place to think, to clear his head.

Siegfried climbed over the wall of the chapel's cemetery, and found the door open. He was exhausted from running up the mountain, away from the battle without the gates of the castle, and his mind was reeling from the conflict within. He needed a minute before he undertook his terrible task.

He pushed the single wooden door open, finding himself in the magnificent chapel of Ostrheinsburg. He was hidden in one of the side aisles, separated from the main nave by a wall of thin columns. Siegfried's eyes followed the pillars up to the high vaulted ceiling. High above on the sides of the walls were the many stained-glass windows, shimmering with many colored lights. Four stained-glass windows on one side, four on the other side, and a circular window, with four longer windows beneath it upon back wall of the chapel: the _narthex_.

Siegfried noticed that there were none of the typical images of the saints or events from the Bible or early Church history, as per the usual art of cathedrals and chapels. Instead there seemed to be several images that depicted something that looked like a great history. There was an image of a king with a white eagle holding a snake in its talons above him and a great sword raised above his head. In another image there was a young man with a bull above him with the great sword in his hands. Another image showed the young man and the king fighting for the control of the sword. In the last window on this side the sword stood alone, wreathed in flame, with demons dancing about it.

He could not make out the windows on the other side, for the sun was shining through them. He did, however, see the large circular window that sat at the far end of the nave, upon the upper end of the wall of the _narthex_. Beneath it were four other tall, narrow stained-glass windows. In the two center glasses there were the images of St. Michael battling the Devil. However, there was something fundamentally different about this painting.

For one, St. Michael was a woman. In her hand was not a spear but a long sword, with a narrow blade and wings of crystal like ice. The devil was not lying down beneath the woman's foot in defeat, as in most images of St. Michael, but was sitting as if in battle-position, and the red, flaming sword from the last few images was in his hand.

Siegfried suddenly realized that he was not alone.

Turning back to the _bema_, at the front of the room, he saw a great golden organ sitting behind the altar. Before the altar knelt a figure in the rich clothing of a lord, with his cloak about his shoulder, obscuring his figure. A voice filled with fear was praying in earnest petition.

It was Sir Stefan.

Siegfried's throat went dry. His hands were shaking and huge beads of sweat were raining down from off his head. His helmet was making his head even hotter, and he took it off his head.

The sound of chain-link mail gloves clinking upon a plate helmet echoed across the stone walls of the castle.

"Abandoning your post, I see." Sir Stefan said. There was no anger in his voice, only sadness. "Even in the thick of battle, fear is a powerful adversary."

Siegfried wished Sir Stefan would stop speaking. His generosity and understanding were making this terrible task harder to accomplish than it already would be.

"Last night," Sir Stefan continued. "I had a dream, where my throne was cast down and given to another. I am not afraid to die, I feel that I have lived as God would have had me. My only regret is that I could not protect the people from the power of the Papacy."

The young man slowly closed the distance between the two of them, trying to be as quiet as possible.

"I would like to see your face," Sir Stefan spake.

This had gone on too long, Siegfried thought. He couldn't wait a moment longer. Sir Stefan was speaking too much, he had to be silenced. Already he felt that he was killing an innocent man, one who did not deserve to die.

No, he reminded himself. It was all for the best cause - the cause of vengeance. Sir Stefan stood between Siegfried and bloody vengeance.

He deserved to die.

Two chain-mail hands gripped the Faustus _zweihander_'s foot-long hilt.

Siegfried sighed.

The time for secrecy was over.

He ran forward, gripping tightly against the resistance of Sir Stefan's body.

There was a cry of surprise. A blood-tipped point of a _zweihander_ emerged from Sir Stefan's belly.

"You're in my way, _sir_!" Siegfried said. There was no respect in his voice, not even sorrow. Only frustration.

He pulled out his sword, leaving the body to fall upon the stone floor of the chapel. Sir Stefan pushed himself over onto his back, regardless of the pain he experienced. He had to see the one who had killed him.

Any hope he may have had was now dashed to pieces.

"What a strange fate this is," he commented. "I let you serve me, and you rose up in the ranks, becoming a trusted _Hauptmann_. And now...you...betray me? Beware, you can never run away from...your sins."

Siegfried's face turned into a scowl. He drove his _zweihander_ into Stefan's neck.

_He's not dying fast enough_, Siegfried thought.

His hands relaxed off the blade, letting it rest in his bleeding neck. Siegfried pushed Sir Stefan's cloak aside, hoping that it was with him.

The look of icy hatred on his face was replaced by a hungry smile.

There it was, just a few inches away from his hands! A black scabbard hung from Sir Stefan's belt. From what he had heard almost a year ago, it was quite possible that this was the Grimblade - the Sword of Heroes. Sir Stefan was wise to keep it on his person at all times, to not trust anyone else with this weapon, not even his personal collection of weapons.

This had to be it.

Soul Edge.

Siegfried had put too much into this one moment for it to be a failure. This was the culmination of a full year of his quest for vengeance: finding the blade. His thoughts ventured on, thinking what he could accomplish if Soul Edge was indeed as powerful as the stories whispered about it.

With trembling hands, Siegfried pulled the blade out of the black sheath.

A fine black blade slid seductively out of the scabbard, gleaming black in the shimmering light of the many stained-glass windows. The blade was black, naked, untouched by scars, blunts or any scratches, perfect in every way. It was clean, with no mark at all upon the blade at all, or on the fuller.

Siegfried's joy turned to shock. He realized just now that he had killed Sir Stefan of Ostrheinsburg...

_For nothing._

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Surprise surprise! I made the stained-glass window tell the story of the Hero-King! I know I said that the main circular window was St. Michael versus the Devil, but it's actually the physical incarnations of Soul Calibur and Soul Edge in combat [horay for pulling a Da Vinci!].)<strong>

**(Next chapter will reveal a little bit more on the background of another _Soul Calibur_ character. Virtual confectioneries for the one[s] who guess correctly who it will be!)**


	8. The Kingdom in the Forest

**(AN: This chapter may seem a little filler-y, but it is important later on, I assure you. For instance, why on earth would a certain friend of Siegfried refer to them has having been friends if they had only just met in SCIV? It's a little back-story, as well as some of my own explanations for the kingdom of said friend)**

**(It's full importance will be revealed much later)**

* * *

><p><strong>The Kingdom in the Forest<strong>

Siegfried Schtauffen slowly awoke from his slumber. Waking was a lot less interesting than his sleep. Not that his sleep held the promise of peace in the slightest. Images of war, of death, of betrayal clutched deep in his subconscious. Then there was a sudden fear and running, faster than he had ever ran before, into a forest...

Then all was dark.

He awoke in a room whose architecture seemed very similar to that which he was familiar with in the cities and towns of Germany, and yet was slightly different. An other-worldy, sylvan feeling there was to the wooden beams, with many beautiful carvings etched into them.

He noticed two servants standing at the edge of the door.

"Hello?" he asked.

There was no response from either of them.

"Do you speak?" Siegfried asked again.

The same response was given to him.

He looked down suddenly and noticed that he was wearing practically nothing. His clothes, his armor...Grimblade!

"Where the hell are my clothes? My sword? My armor?"

But the two servant said nothing.

"I demand to know who's taken my things!" Siegfried shouted in protest.

The two servants looked at each other and then departed.

Siegfried screamed in rage, throwing the blanket off his body and running towards the two servants. To his dismay, they had shut the door to his appartment the moment they left.

He was trapped.

Suddenly it all came back to him, more vivid than the smell of pine in his nostrils.

Grimblade was not Soul Edge. He had betrayed a good, noble man for nothing. He was no nearer to finding the Sword of Heroes than he was the day he had...than the night his father had been slain.

He was wasting too much time with these petty tasks. He had a job to do, a duty to his father! It was his responsibility to do something! He couldn't be trapped here - wherever it was - at the mercy of whoever had captured him.

He ran towards the table on the far-side of the room, picked up a chair and threw it at the door. The door was made of stronger stuff, though, and the small chair broke against it like water upon rock. Siegfried roared in anger, reaching for the nearest thing he could find to break, to smash, to tear. He had to get out of here, somehow...

The door opened.

"Milord, should we accompany you?" a voice said from outside.

"No need, I'm perfectly safe." the lord answered.

Siegfried turned towards the open door. A man no older than his father was standing before him. He was attired in the habits of a lord, though a large wolf-skin was thrown over his shoulder, with the head sticking out from his shoulder like a pauldron.

"Did you not find your accommodations to your liking?" the lord asked Siegfried.

"What?" he panted.

"Well, it appears that you've done a very radical reordering of things in here," the lord continued. "So I assume something is wrong with the decor."

"Who are you?" Siegfried asked. "Where is this? Where are my things? My clothes, my sword, my armor..."

"Have no fear, _mein freund_," the gentleman said, raising his hands in a placative gesture. "Your clothes were finished almost an hour ago. We were just waiting for you to awake before returning them to you." The lord turned and ordered one of his servants to bring up the clothes.

"Now tell me where I'm at." Siegfried ordered.

"You are in the Kingdom of Wolfkrone."

* * *

><p>"I assume you have many questions you'd like to ask of me." the lord of Wolfkrone stated.<p>

A much calmer, and more clothed, Siegfried walked with the lord along the walls of his castle. It looked out upon a sea of trees stretching as far as the eye could see. The castle seemed to be on the top of a mountain that peeked through the top of the forest, offering a wide, panoramic view of the entire forest.

"Yes," Siegfried stated. "For one, tell me where we really are. I've never heard of a Kingdom of Wolfkrone."

"Because," the lord said. "According to the Emperor and the Church, we do not exist."

"What do you mean?" Siegfried asked.

"Our kingdom lies in the middle of the _Schwarzwald_," the lord began. A look of surprise and alarm crept across Siegfried's young face. "Peasants and lords alike fear that forest, based on silly legends about _Rosenrot_ and a big bad wolf killing her poor grand-mama and masquerading as her."

Siegfried nodded in response.

"That story, _mein freund_, is a lie." the lord stated. "You see, we are the wolf: the Kingdom of Wolfkrone. And the story is told by parents to keep their children out of the forest, but there is another reason for it."

"What is that?" Siegfried asked.

"This is a wholly free kingdom," Von Krone answered. "Here, within our wald, we are safe from the woes of the world, the rule of the Emperor and the demands of the Papacy. Here people are free to worship as they like, to live as they like. Their only allegiance is to the crown of Wolfkrone, for we maintain this sanctuary of peace and prosperity.

"Naturally, those who seek power are afraid that we would make the whole world as such, so they teach their children to fear the wolf and to shun his _wald_." He turned back to Siegfried and laughed.

"I said that the tale of _Rosenrot_ is a lie, but not all fairy tales are such. There is one, which you may not have heard, which bears with it the greatest truth."

"Tell me, please." Siegfried asked. He wasn't really interested, just trying to let this man talk with him to his heart's content. Maybe afterward he could get his things back and get on with his journey.

"Many centuries ago," Von Krone said. "A young prince found a fey being attacked by a wolf. He killed the wolf and saved the fey from being eaten. In gratitude, the fey fell in love with the prince and made a trophy of the wolf's hide for him as a token of his victory. She asked only one thing of him: that he would show her the world.

"This he did, and when she was content, the fey fled back into the forest. The prince called out for her day and night, but the fey never returned. At last he fell asleep in the forest and when he awoke, he founded a great city on a mountain in the forest. That, _mein freund_, is the story of how the Kingdom of Wolfkrone was established."

Siegfried nodded.

They were now come to a tower where music was echoing from inside a closed door. Suddenly the door opened and a little girl, not even twelve years old, ran out of the room and onto the stone parapet. When the girl turned, she blushed a furious shade of red, similar to the shade of her hair, which was rebelliously bursting out of her coif, when she saw the tall, handsome young knight.

"Hilde!" the lord said to the young girl. "What happened? I thought you were enjoying your toys."

"The fifer broke, papa." she answered, turning rather to the rugged, familiar and loving face of her father.

"Well I'll have the craftsmen repair it at once," the lord answered, with a smile on his face. "In the mean-time, off to your lessons with you."

"Yes papa!" the girl said with a huge smile. She bowed to her father and then ran off again.

Von Krone was laughing.

"A lovely girl, my daughter is." he said with pride. "She's the image of her mother - the red hair, the eyes, the lips, even the beauty mark on her face. Her mother died giving birth to her, so sad."

"I'm sorry, my lord." Siegfried answered. He really wasn't.

"Oh, it's nothing." Von Krone answered. "I've tried to raise her as best I could, but I have a kingdom to run. It's a great responsibility, _mein freund_: managing a kingdom and being a father. I'd rather be a father, that's much easier."

Siegfried chuckled at what he thought was supposed to be a jest.

"But Hilde," Von Krone continued. "If only I had a son as well. I would rather my precious Hildegard grow up to be a lady, be married, have a family of her own, and live the life her mother gave up for her. The throne is not for her, I can see that. She's too optimistic, too loving, too innocent for the squabbles and intrigue of politics."

Siegfried did not say a word, for it seemed as though Von Krone was tearing up a little.

"What exactly did she mean," he said at last. "By 'the fifer broke'?"

"I hired builders from all over the world," Von Krone began. "To make a large room filled with wind-up and clock-work dolls, made of wood. They dance and they pantomime: it's rather impressive, I must say."

The young blond man just nodded his head. He hadn't seen it, and it was nothing for him to see a child's play-thing. He was much too old for toys.

"You know," Von Krone stated. "I have obliged your curiosity, but yet I know so little about you. What is your name, _junge_? And where do you hail from?"

"I am Siegfried Schtauffen," he answered. "I come from Ober-Getzenberg."

"Ah, I see." Von Krone mused. "I would like to get to know you better, and meet your family."

"My father is dead," Siegfried answered grimly.

"God rest his soul," Von Krone emphatically said.

"He was murdered," the young knight stated. "It's my duty to find the murderer and avenge my father's death."

Von Krone nodded. "Well, my duty is to keep the people of Wolfkrone safe from harm and hidden from unfriendly eyes. Therefore your being here creates something of a problem..." He snapped his fingers. "Unless there were friendship between Ober-Getzenberg and Wolfkrone."

The lord turned to Siegfried and placed his hands on the young man's shoulders.

"_Mein freund_," he stated. "I show you know the greatest of trust, to let you leave this place, who have been to it, but I ask only one thing of you: when you leave the _Schwarzwald_, go to your home and let there be peace between us. Or, if not, you will swear to never surrender the secret of our kingdom to any, or fight in wars against or join yourself to our enemies. Do you swear this?"

"I will." Siegfried answered.

"You will what?"

"I swear," Siegfried began. "That when I leave, there will be peace between your kingdom and mine."

Von Krone smiled, releasing his hands from off the young man's shoulders.

"I will send you your things immediately," he said. "I will even outfit you with a horse." He pointed to a pair of guards standing by a nearby stair-well. "These two will guide you to the stables."

Siegfried bowed before Von Krone, showing his respect.

The lord placed a hand on Siegfried's shoulder again.

"Before you go, however," he said. "There is one last thing I must say: have a care for yourself, _Herr_ Schtauffen. The one seeking vengeance should dig a grave for himself as well as for his enemy."

"That will _not_ be the case with me," Siegfried answered. "I can assure you."

"I hope you're right, Siegfried. I hope you're right." Von Krone said. He then embraced the young knight.

"_Auf wiedersehen, mein freund_. Godspeed, and may Freiengeiste be with you."

Siegfried nodded, then walked down the parapet towards the stairs. The guards showed him the quickest way to the stables and soon he was back in his armor, riding upon a white horse, streaming through the _Schwarzwald_ like a flash of light.

He did not care that he had made a silly promise to Von Krone. He did not care about peace or enemies, the Emperor or the Church, God or this Freiengeiste: even honor meant nothing to him. Now that he was free again, only one thing mattered to the mind of Siegfried Schtauffen.

The Sword.

* * *

><p><strong>(The first thing is that this chapter helps establish that Siegfried is going closer and closer towards the edge. It's essential for his final collapse, which I promise will [spoiler alert].)<strong>

**(Since there is no historical Wolfkrone, I decided to make it a "hidden" Kingdom in the Black Forest [_Schwarzwald_]. It's sort of a utopia, though sickness and death are still prevalent so it isn't a true utopia. I think the official story is that it _is_ a hidden kingdom. As for the history of its foundation, I embellished a little on it for more depth. Also, Scheherazade is an Arabic/Persian name, which would not befit one who grew up in a German forest: therefore, though she may be known by that name among her tribe of fairies [or feys], her German name is _Freiengeiste_, a sort of mash-up of the German words for "free" and "spirit", which is appropriate considering her violation of the rules of her fairy kingdom by running out into the wide world beyond. [as one of the meanings for the real Scheherazade's name is "city-freer", which she did by freeing the city of the King's murderous behavior towards his wives. Read the _1001 Nights_ if you need more info: it's the epic where Aladdin, Ali-Babba and Sinbad the Sailor came from, and many others as well!])**

**(Stuff will start _really_ going down in the next chapter, so stick around!)**


	9. Crucible

**(AN: Sorry it's taken nine chapters for anything _really_ major to happen. After all, this _is_ an epic, and I want to do justice to the term _epic_ and make the story one that feels epic in every sense of the word.)**

**(Now we have the greatest turning point in the history of this character. Do not go anywhere, because this is the moment you have all been waiting for!)**

* * *

><p><strong>Crucible<strong>

_Two weeks later..._

The coast of Northern Germany was magnificent to behold. Cliffs of rock where the water of the sea crashed upon it like a wave of soldiers upon a line of shields created white foam and sprinkled water many dozens of feet high into the air, to come splattering down upon the rocks and sand below.

None of this beauty mattered to Siegfried.

Two weeks out of Wolfkrone and he was nowhere closer to finding the legendary Sword of Heroes than he was when he first went out looking for it. Two weeks of solitude had broken Siegfried's mind into many thousands of tiny pieces. Without food, without water, without anyone to talk to but himself, the young man was starting to argue with himself.

_It's all worth it. I may be famished, parched, and lonely beyond belief, but once I've found the Sword of Heroes, everything will be different. I will be able to kill the bastard who killed my father and be at peace at last._

_But what happens if you do kill him? What then? Is there any going back to life after this? You betrayed your own master._

_Lies, all lies! He stood between me and my goal, he had to die. He needed to die!_

_Needed to die? No one needs to die. You killed him, and when you did, you found out that it was in vain. Grimblade is not Soul Edge._

_So what? I didn't need him._

_What if you find Soul Edge and it's all in vain? What if it's not as powerful as the legends say it is?_

_No! Never! It is just as powerful as they say! I refuse to believe that I have done all this...spilled so much blood...for nothing!_

_But what if you have? The death of Sir Stefan was for nothing: what if the Sword of Heroes doesn't even exist? You will be wasting your youth, the best years of your life, on nothing! Remember what Herr Dürer said: men have gone mad in search of it!_

_Lesser men, weaker men! I am not a weak man, I am a strong man! I shouldered the greatest responsibility ever: forsaking life and land for the love I have for my father._

_Love? Do you really think it is love that drives you to kill? Is it love that drove you to betray Sir Stefan - a good man - and kill him when he needed you on the battlefield? You ran like a coward and stabbed him in the back!_

_It was necessary, it was for my father!_

_It was for nothing! Your quest is a fool's errand, futile!_

_I will not let my father's murderer go free!_

_Then kill yourself right now!_

_Liar! I would never kill him, **I WOULDN'T!** I loved my father, and he loved me! I would sooner die a thousand times than ever lay harm to him._

_Then who killed him?_

_I-I don't know! But I will, once I have Soul Edge. Everything will work out perfectly - just watch and see, it will all be worth it!_

Siegfried came to a halt, leaning heavily upon Grimblade.

His eyes rested upon a ruinous wreckage lying forsaken upon the coast. It was a carrack, by the look of it. Very large indeed, with huge black sails lying in tattered ruins upon the broken, skeletal masts.

A great desire came over Siegfried to enter the wreckage. He could not explain why he wanted to go inside, just that he did. It was the most important thing to him right now in the whole world.

He made his way down to the beach, and approached the mammoth ruin of the great ship. The bow was stuck fast into the sand, with the effigy of a naked woman upon the bow-pole.

Siegfried blushed, even at the wooden model of an exposed woman's chest. He was still sixteen and a virgin at that. Bandits didn't have women chasing after them in these times, and he never really found himself with one while in the _Schwarzwind_.

As he came up to the huge bow of the ship, all gnarled with barnacles and blackened by constant submergence in the water, a problem came to his mind. There were rigging from the ship dangling about on their skeletal masts and poles, but were they safe to use? And would they break under the stress from one wearing heavy plate armor? What if the ropes weren't safe, or the masts were rotten?

His desire to venture inside the ship overcame his fear of whatever there might be inside. Taking up Grimblade, he thrust the sword into the wooden hull of the bow. With a fierce tug, he drew it out and then hacked at the wood again. Once more he struck at the wood: it must be very strong stuff, to have survived whatever gale had ruined it thus and still put up a fight against the black _zweihander_.

Suddenly there was a snap.

Siegfried directed his whole strength against the small bit of brighter-colored wood splinters. He struck again, and the crack got bigger. Again, and then the wood started to quiver with his very blows. A third strike he sent upon the wood, a fourth, a fifth, six, seven, eight...nine...ten...

The wood gave way! With his armored boot, Siegfried kicked at the weakened wood, widening the breach. He kicked again, and a piece of wood fell into the dark hull.

He almost stumbled back, choking and coughing in disgust. A massive stench of sweat, moldy wood, blood, the sea and rum overwhelmed his nostrils. Trying hard not to breathe, Siegfried returned to kicking and hacking at the wooden hull.

After working up a healthy sweat and what seemed to take all day, he had made a hole large enough to push himself through, even in his armor. Now he was inside the ship, the only light gushing in from the hole he had just made.

Inside the ship, the hull was filled with water. It was slightly leaning, so Siegfried stepped wherever was secure. His greatest fear was that his armor would get wet and therefore rust away into uselessness. But his desire to explore this ship was stronger than his fear of rust, and so he kept on. Several barrels and dead bodies floated in the flooded hull. Some of the floaters looked pale and ghastly, long since dead or maybe made such by scurvy or other diseases that so commonly assault sailors.

Siegfried came to a wall, which obviously was dividing the forward section of the ship from the mid-section. A shaft of light was pouring in from the room next to him. He had to see where it was coming from, because light meant another way out in case he needed a quicker escape.

The next room was considerably smaller, with stairs leading up to where the light was issuing from: the upper deck. Though Siegfried had not yet fully explored the hull and lower decks, a new desire crept within his being to see the main deck.

If anyone was still alive on this God-forsaken ship, they wouldn't be for long against Grimblade.

The scene on the top of the ship was not much better. By reason of being thrust onto land so violently, the ship was horribly slanted. The bow was raised almost to a forty-five degree angle, while Siegfried could not understand, for the life of him, why the stern was still holding up despite the waves crashing against it.

There was blood all over the planks of the deck, which not even a storm could have washed off. Bodies of crew-men were lying everywhere, with many cuts and sword-wounds in them. There was definitely a battle on this ship, one that brought this mighty vessel to its knees and at last to its final resting place.

Siegfried looked up to the mast, and saw a black flag flying defiantly in the breeze, completely unaware that the ship it hailed was so far beyond recall to be considered a threat by such a flag. Siegfried knew what that flag meant.

Pirates.

_So_, thought he, _a pirate ship was attacked and destroyed. Good riddance, the world needs less of them._

He was about to leave when he noticed something that he had not seen before, something that was very mesmerizing and yet wholly disturbing.

On many ships, especially carracks, the captain's cabin at the stern made a raised rear section, upon which the wheel was positioned. Slumped against the door of his cabin, with the two stairways that led up to the helm on either side, was a man in the middle ages of his life. Though his life was obviously over, it seemed. His skin was deathly pale, the exact same color of his hair, which hung in long trails down upon his face. His clothes were very rich, though stained with blood, and his hat, still positioned atop his white head, indicated that he was the captain of this vessel.

Siegfried noticed that there was something even more odd about the captain than the fact that he was dead, or that his hair and skin were so unnaturally pale.

His right hand was burned black, as if he had kept it in the fire for his whole life and now it would not heal no matter what. It looked broken beyond repair, like a black claw of death lying open upon the ground, a lone black finger beckoning him to come closer.

_No_, Siegfried thought. _It is not moving. He's dead, after all. He can't get back up._

Siegfried's eyes, however, turned to the pirate captain's left hand. Defiantly it clutched the hilt of his sword, which he had dug into the deck as if to keep himself going in a fight that he had clearly lost.

The young knight's breath vanished from out of his lungs. His throat tightened, his palms became sweaty and his knees and hands were shaking violently as he looked at the sword in the pirate captain's hand.

It was a rather long sword, about three feet high, though not as long as his _zweihander_, with a clean, double-edged blade that seemed to shine in the mid-day light. A strange, reddish-brown growth there was, however, that had grown over the hilt and made its way about a third of the way up the strong of the blade. The hilt was fashioned like two claws with two fingers on each end. But what took Siegfried's breath away was the thing that sat upon the growth on the blade, about a hand's breadth above the chappe.

A single, red eye.

Could this be it, Siegfried dared to wonder. It fit the description of the eye upon the blade, and how many other swords had eyes upon the blade as this so obviously did? This was just too easy, lifting a sword presumably that was the Sword of Heroes from off a pirate captain's corpse.

It seemed too good to be true.

With a trembling hand, Siegfried reached out towards the hilt of the sword, closing the distance inch by inch. His mail-clad fingers flexed in anticipation to grip cold steel beneath his fingers, to know what power felt like.

Siegfried cried out in fear and disgust.

That black claw was now holding his wrist.

"Did you really think it would be that easy?"

If Siegfried had not been looking directly at the pirate captain, he would not have believed that he was the one who spoke. Though he hardly believed that, in life, this mere human possessed a voice as menacing as the one that now spoke to him.

There was a sound laughter, hellish laughter unlike any Siegfried had ever heard in his entire life. Fire was consuming the body of the pirate captain: by some sorcery that Siegfried did not understand, the pirate captain was not showing any signs of being in pain. He was still laughing menacingly.

Or rather, the voice that came from his body was laughing.

There was a sudden explosion, as the entire ship was thrown into a vortex of fire and darkness. The ship began to slowly break apart, timber by timber, plank by plank, until only the main deck remained, with the bow, stern and masts floating about them, as though they were hanged upon nothing.

Siegfried noticed that the pirate captain was gone. In his stead there loomed a great skeleton, standing as if it were alive, and wreathed in flame. Its eyes were a white flame, and two swords it held in its hands: they both looked like the blade the pirate captain held in its hands.

"Who-What are you?" Siegfried asked in fear.

The being spoke.

"I am the darkness in your heart," it said. "I am the evil in your soul: I am Inferno, and I am Soul Edge!"

Siegfried gripped the hilt of Grimblade. It seemed that this would not be as easy as he thought it would be.

"Mmmm," growled Inferno. "Such anger...such madness...a powerful soul you are...or are you?"

"What do you mean?" Siegfried returned.

"You want the Sword?" it roared. "Come and take it."

That was just what Siegfried hoped it would say.

He gripped the hilt and swung the blade towards the beast. It vanished in a haze of fire and smoke, disappearing from sight.

"Too slow!" the demonic voice growled from above his head.

Siegfried looked up and saw the demon floating in the air above him, but without wings as a flying thing would do so in his world.

The demon threw down a blast of fire. Siegfried barely had time to roll aside and miss the infernal missile. Another one rained down from Inferno and Siegfried rolled aside. He could not keep this up forever, for his armor was heavy and it would not be easy to roll and run about in.

Suddenly there was a strike of fire, and Inferno was standing before him.

"Pathetic!" the demon roared. "For eons I have tasted the souls of countless fools who have dared to wield me: their strength is my strength. What chance do you really think you have?"

"You-You're a sword!" Siegfried shouted. "You can't be alive!"

"Can't I?" Inferno retorted. "I, who have overthrown kingdoms, nobles, counselors and magi beyond count! And you think you can master me?"

A great fiery fist struck down upon Siegfried, but he held his right arm in the way. The fire was definitely real, for it felt to Siegfried as though he had stuck his hand into the heart of Hell. With his hand, he smote the beast with the pommel of his sword.

He collapsed on the deck, feeling too exhausted from that single blow.

He was fighting a being not of this world, one who, to be close to was to be in the fire. But Siegfried could not give up, this was the culmination of his hunt. He was so close to ultimate power, he could not give up now!

"I wonder," Inferno said. "What your father would think if he could see you now..."

A fire burned within Siegfried's soul. There was new strength within him now.

A claw-like foot came at him, but he grabbed it with his right hand. His mail was burning through his gloves and into his skin. He grit his teeth together and refused to let go.

"Don't...you **dare**...speak my father's name, beast!"

Siegfried pushed the demon back with all his might. Taking his sword in both hands, he charged at the beast, raining blows heavily down upon it. Fire was pouring to the deck, it might catch fire. Siegfried did not care: if he was to die, he'd take this demon down with him.

"**This is for _you_, Father!**" Siegfried shouted.

The moment had come at last.

With one last strike, he thrust Grimblade into the chest of Inferno.

A great surge of energy flowed through the sword. It was shaking so violently that Siegfried feared it would break in his hands. Fire was pouring out of the being in all directions. Siegfried feared he would be burned. The entire deck would be devoured, and then it was down into the abyss below. All was going black.

* * *

><p>When Siegfried awoke again, he found himself lying upon the deck of the pirate ship. The vessel was still ruined, but looked like nothing else had happened save for the accident that brought it to this shore. There was no sign of Inferno, and the pirate captain still lay against his ship, dead as stone.<p>

Siegfried's eyes looked directly in front of him. There, the point embedded into the deck, was a great sword, as tall as a _zweihander_. But the growth was still upon it, and the beady eye was still there, looking here and there.

There was no more sign of Grimblade.

Siegfried pushed himself up to his feet. It was too good to be true. He had done the impossible: Inferno was defeated, and now the Sword of Heroes stood before him, submissive to his will.

A frenzied smile crept across Siegfried's face.

He swallowed, trying to subdue the lump in his throat. His right hand was trembling as he reached it out towards the hilt. It was like a dream: Siegfried wished he would never wake up. His mail-clad fingers slid around the hilt of Soul Edge.

It was unnaturally cold, as if no amount of heat could ever warm it. Siegfried was ecstatic, he could see it with his own eyes, feel it in his fingers.

It was real...and it was his!

But something was wrong.

The hilt had closed around his wrist. He could not release his grip on the blade. A sensation of both blazing heat and deathly chill crept up his right arm. It was twisting, contorting, and deforming before his very eyes. His armor was fading, becoming darker and darker. All about him, the world was falling into darkness; or maybe it was the light that was now emanating from his own being that made all else seem dim.

_Such power..._

Who was this voice speaking to him?

_Such potential..._

_No! **I** am the master of Soul Edge! I need to use its power to avenge my father!_

_Vengeance? That is for fools. With this power, nothing is impossible._

_Nothing?_

_Even death will bow down before you. Simply forget about everything: friends, family, love, everything that ties you to their world. Give yourself to me and nothing will stand before us._

The crucible was over.

A new creature was born into the darkness of the night.

* * *

><p><strong>(What just happened? I can't tell, that would ruin the mystery of the story. You probably know already, but I'm not going to tell in case you don't.)<strong>

**(This is based on _Soul Edge_/_Soul Blade_, the first part of the _Soul_ series. I decided to change the final stage from Valencia port to a shore near Northern Germany. You'll see exactly why I want that to happen [especially if I make a story about Sophitia, which I'm seriously considering]. I liked the floating ship-wreckage in the Inferno-version of the stage, so I kept that.)**

**(In case you may be wondering - no, I will not include anything from _Broken Destiny_. You may like it, but I'm not a big fan of how they changed the story. Not only does it somewhat weaken Soul Edge's control over Siegfried, but it tries to make it that Soul Calibur can be used by beings of evil, when it obviously cannot. Besides, I did not like Iska at all.)**

**(Sorry for the rant. I've been very careful with the last nine chapters, now I need to plan and research for the next several as we dive into _Soulcalibur_ proper. There will be plenty more SC characters now than before, so you might get to see an appearance by more of your favorites)**


	10. The Last Straw

**(AN: This file had 6.66 kilobytes! [definitely more after I've finished with it, but it fits with what has been happening...and what _will_ happen.])**

**(This chapter is something of the conclusion of the Siegfried/**Dürer** arc, since I can't think of anything else they could do together. I know he appears later, but we're not there yet!)**

**(Kind of filler-y, but still very cool. A mass of familiar faces next chapter, I assure you)**

* * *

><p><strong>The Last Straw<strong>

Three years of nightmares. Three years the plagued mind of Siegfried Schtauffen lay dormant, locked away in some obscure region of his brain, never to be seen again. Almost nothing remained of him in that shell that was now his body, twisted beyond belief into something neither he nor his father would ever even recognize again.

He was sitting in a clearing, looking down upon his form, reflected in the water of a small stream. His skin was darker than humanly possible, his long blond hair turned blood red. His helmet was lying discarded in his hand: not the helmet he wore into battle that day in Ostrheinsburg, but a new helmet, with a single spike on the end.

His eyes were red, like the eye of the blade he now carried. There was nothing left of his right arm, simply a huge malformed thing, like the claw of some hideous creature, twisted and mutilated beyond recognition. That was where he first touched Soul Edge, the indellible mark of his choice.

He had one last thing to do.

The heavy helmet he threw back onto his head, obscuring the distorted face he once possessed.

A huge black war-horse was waiting just behind him. Like its master, its eyes were red and blue armor covered its body, with a single spike jutting out from the crown of the horse's helm. The army would be on their way soon.

It was time.

* * *

><p>Johan Dürer did not like the looks of this.<p>

After the disastrous siege of Ostrheinsburg, he and his family drifted more or less. It was time to settle down, he knew, for the age of gunpowder was swiftly overtaking the age of the sword. The Margrave of Barcelona proved that in his attack on the castle. So Johan and the last of his Landsknechts left and headed out on their own, to seek their own fortunes.

It was at this time that he discovered the Kingdom of Wolfkrone, and decided to let his family live here, with the permission of the king. Such a peaceful, cooperative kingdom was just what he needed to raise his family in: it was a worthy idea, worth the giving up of his life.

And then that day, three years ago, when it all changed. There was a flash of light to the north, like lightning from the earth that struck the sky. It continued like a great column, and evil followed after it. The _Landsknechts_ were extremely blood-thirsty, killing whatever got in their way and sometimes charging into battle without orders.

Von Krone turned into a beast.

Johan was there at the scene, and saw the creature tear apart his servants, his friends. It was his interference that saved the little princess from harm, and his leadership of the berserking _Landsknechts_ that at last imprisoned Von Krone in the highest tower of his keep.

A sad fate it was.

Now he and his Berserkers were off again, looking for the one responsible for that light, which many were now calling 'The Evil Seed.' Johan Dürer wanted peace, but now he was thrust once again into the stage of war.

They were in a forest, and suddenly Johan called for a hault.

"Do you hear that?" he said to the others.

"Sounds like a rider, father." Karl said.

"It is." Johan answered. "Get the men together, we'll set up an ambush."

"What if they're not an enemy?" Hans asked.

"People don't often come into the _Schwarzwald_, Hans, you know that." Johan returned. "Now quiet down!"

The berserkers leapt off to the sides of the road, hiding themselves in the under-brush and behind fallen logs and large rocks. The sound of hooves approaching them were now plain to hear.

A chill fell over the berserkers as they hide, unaware of the terror that approached them.

Johan Durer rose from his hiding place, walked forward and stood in the roar, his hands folded upon the pommel of his sword, which he had stabbed into the earth. Before him loomed a knight on a black horse, both of them clad in blue armor. The knight had a huge weapon, similar to a _zweihander_ in his left hand: his right arm, however, was horribly deformed and grotesque.

"Halt, good sir knight!" he announced. "This road is closed. Go back the way you came."

"Out of my way, old fool!" growled the Azure Knight.

"There's no need for insults, good sir knight." Dürer stated. "I have done you no harm. I don't even know you..."

"But I know you," returned the Knight. "I know what lies inside your soul." The Knight rose his sword, pointing it directly at Herr Dürer. "Offer your soul to Soul Edge!"

Without warning, one of the _Landsknechts_ rose from hiding and fired at the Knight. The Azure Knight fell off his horse, tumbling to the ground.

"Wait!" Dürer insisted. "Do not attack him!"

"Kill him!" shouted one of the _Landsknechts_.

"No one touches him, that's an order!"

"Hurry! Finish him off!"

"What in God's name has come over you?"

A cry came from one of the _Landsknechts_.

The Azure Knight was back on his feet again. A furious blaze was in his red eyes. His huge, demonic _zweihander_ swung at the nearest _Landsknecht_, sending the head tumbling off and falling on the ground with a sickening thump. Another one charged towards the Knight, but was impaled on the giant blade.

Two more attacked, but were stricken back by a huge swipe of the giant blade.

Two more gun-shots glanced off the blue armor of the Knight. The grim, horned visage of the Azure Knight turned off the side of the road, walking slowly and menacingly towards the two sharp-shooters who dared hit him.

They were both hacked down in one single swipe.

"Hans! Karl!" Herr Dürer cried in fear, in shock, in agony.

His two sons fell into the ferns, blood pouring from their open wounds. The Azure Knight, meanwhile, turned on the rest of the _Landsknecht_ berkserkers, killing them all with as little regard for young or old, wounded or whole, as a cow has for the flies that sit upon its back.

"You'll pay for that, you bastard!" Herr Dürer shouted. With both hands, he gripped the hilt of his claymore and charged at the Azure Knight.

The Knight turned towards the charging Landsknecht, and made a huge sweeping motion with his sword.

It cut Dürer's chest, throwing him to the ground.

The cut wasn't deep.

The Azure Knight slowly paced about the ambush site, making short work of the rest of Dürer's _Landsknecht_ berserkers.

"Wait...stop!" Herr Dürer groaned. "Come back here! Finish what you started. You killed my sons, my men...kill me, huh? **KILL ME, YOU SON OF A B*TCH!**"

The Azure Knight halted. Something kept his hand from striking down Johan Dürer, something that the Azure Knight could not wholly perceive. Was it some vestige of loyalty, felt by the host towards this weak human, or was it the desire of the blade to make this man suffer by letting him see his children die before his very eyes? Or maybe the host was stunned by the kind of behavior the old man had for his sons...that he was ready to die for them, and die because they had died as well...

The Knight walked among the bodies, passing the huge blade over each of the corpses. A haze of green light erupted from out of their mouths and eyes and floated into the one eye of the blade, as the souls of those warriors were now being devoured by the endless maw of Soul Edge's hunger.

Totally heedless of Johan Dürer's pleas of anger.

His pleas to die.

* * *

><p><strong>(I take it back, there could definitely be use for this later on, even slight use.)<strong>

**(Okay, look at Hilde's Soul Calibur profile: it says that she withstood the assault of the forces of the Azure Knight. Obviously he attacked Wolfkrone at least once. Dürer's profile has something similar to a lord he was serving being possessed and transformed during the Evil Seed incident, so I merged those together.)**

**(Still debating on if I should up the rating. You'll definitely see why in the next few chapters)**


	11. The Gathering

**(AN: Here it is, the chapter I said would have all the cool appearances. Hope you're ready for this, because it's going to be good!)**

* * *

><p><strong>The Gathering<strong>

Ostrheinsburg had been like home for him, and it was now the home of the Azure Knight.

He sat upon the throne that once belonged to Sir Stefan. In his deformed right hand was Soul Edge, gleaming like a fire-brand pulled out of the depths of Hell. Two very strange characters were standing at either side of his throne, one very tall and muscular, the other shorter, no less muscular but hunching greatly.

There was one other left for their group, the one he had sent out his will to reach. He was waiting for the last one, for once that person had arrived, the ritual could commence.

Soul Edge's promises would be fulfilled.

Already darkened clouds were gathering over Ostrheinsburg. On this unholy ground it would take place: this would be the fortress of the Azure Knight's new realm, where the darkness would begin...once it was complete, of course.

It would become a place of evil.

The doors to the great throne room were pushed open. The lord and his two subjects turned to see who it was who dared approach them. A woman, dressed in the clothing of an English noblewoman tip-toed into the darkened throne room.

"Who dares come before me?" the lord called out.

"It is I, great one," the woman returned, speaking in her native English language. "Your humble servant, whom you deemed worthy to appear before and grant life to my sword."

The lord nodded his armored head.

"Why have you come to my fortress?" the Azure Knight asked.

"My lord," the woman bowed. "My sword has guided and protected me throughout this long, arduous journey, and it has at last led me to you. I offer you my service, great one, in return for the favor you showed me."

"Come before me." the lord ordered.

The shoes of the English woman echoed in the huge throne room as she walked down the red carpet towards the throne. Once she was in the light, the Azure Knight was able to see her fully. She was clothed in a black dress, with her hair coiffed up behind her cap that obscured any sign that she had hair. Her face was pale, and made even more pale by nature of the color of clothing she wore.

"Kneel," the Azure Knight ordered. The woman did as she was instructed, kneeling very reverently before her lord.

"I would like you to meet my chief servants," the Knight said to the woman. He pointed first to the monstrosity at his right. It was very tall, with black skin stretched over a mass of muscle and strength. It was clad very sparsely, in the garb of an executioner, with a muzzle over its mouth, and two white eyes glaring down at the woman. A huge ax was in its hand.

"This is Astaroth," the Azure Knight said, pointing with his sword to the giant. "A golem of clay formed by the pagan priests of Fygul Cestemus. None can match his strength or his endurance."

A noncommittal grunt came from the behemoth. The Knight then pointed to the other at his side. A being crawled up into the light on all fours, like some kind of dragon. It hissed rather than spoke, and the woman took a step back but did not cry out in shock as most women do. As the creature came into the light, it was revealed that it was a creature that walked like a human, yet looked like a dragon: with scales, claws, a snouted mouth filled with dagger-teeth and even a tail. A shield was in one hand and a short sword in the other.

"Aeon Calcos was once a servant of pagan gods," the Knight stated. "Until they deformed him...into this."

"My lord, what is the meaning of this?" the woman asked.

"We are summoning souls to this place, woman." the Azure Knight answered, rising from his throne and looming over the woman. "Every one of us here serves a purpose: I am the summoner, Astaroth is my body-guard and Calcos was once a Spartan warrior. What unique talent do you bring that would benefit our cause?"

"My father was an alchemist," she answered. "He taught me a few things of his art. And I myself am a sorceress."

Silence filled the room, a dead kind of silence that moved between them so close that it could almost be felt.

"You are not surprised by my statement?" the woman asked.

"Forgive us," the Knight said. "But we are still unamused."

"I'm a skilled woman," she answered a little too hastily. "I created the sword. You brought it to life, but I know how to wield it."

"Ha! A she-human wielding a sword!" growled the black golem.

"Silence, Astaroth!" the Azure Knight returned, pointing his great sword towards the giant. The Knight then turned to the woman. "Show me your sword."

A hand reached up to her white ruff and tore it apart. Both hands then reached behind her back and began untying the strings of her bodice. Once it came loose, she threw it down to the floor behind her. As she was undressing, her hand went down to her hoop-skirt and unfastened it, stepping out of the constricting iron hoop. She removed her corset and threw it behind her, then lastly went her coif, letting her short, platinum white hair fall down.

Beneath her huge clothing, the woman wore a skin tight leather outfit that was nothing more than knee-boots that went half-way up her thighs and various straps of leather that criss-crossed her upper body, forming a narrow thong at her loins and snaked all the way up her body. The affect was that she was wrapped so tightly that her voluptuousness was accented greatly.

She reached down to her long boot and pulled out a short, three-foot long sword, with pale runes upon the fuller. This she placed in her hands and held out before the Azure Knight.

"This, my lord, is my sword." she answered.

The Azure Knight chuckled menacingly in delight.

"I assume you know how to use it?" he asked.

"I do, my lord." she answered.

"And what is your name?"

"Ivy, my lord." she answered.

"Kneel before me, Ivy, and swear your allegiance to the Azure Knight, lord of Ostrheinsburg."

The woman named Ivy knelt down before the Azure Knight, who removed the glove from his left hand and held it down before her. It was brown, like his other hand, but much more human in contrast. Upon its fourth finger there was the ring of the Schtauffen family, given to the host by his father on his thirteenth birthday.

Ivy grasped the hand with both of hers and kissed the ring.

* * *

><p>The four of them were now standing in the throne room, around a table. A map there was of Ostrheinsburg, and here the lord was arranging for them places to stay.<p>

"I shall remain here in the Throne Room," the Azure Knight said. "You will come to me if you have any news. Astaroth shall stay in the dungeon here..." The left hand pointed to the dungeon on the map.

"Why do I get the dungeon?" roared Astaroth.

"Because it's like the caves of Kunpaektu," answered the Knight. "Aeon, you shall hide in the waterways, attacking any who shall come across the bridges." The Knight turned to the woman. "Ivy, you shall have the chapel as your own."

"Thank you, my lord." she returned.

"Now leave, I want to be alone!" ordered the lord of Ostrheinsburg.

Astaroth and Calcos lumbered or crawled away slowly, departing as they were instructed. Only one did not: the human woman.

"My lord," she said. "Forgive me for not leaving, but may I have a private audience with you?"

"Granted." growled the Knight.

"Far be it from me, my lord," Ivy began. "To question your command, but I have to wonder: what exactly is this summoning ceremony we are undertaking?"

"I told you before," the lord said. "We are summoning souls to this hallowed ground."

"But why?"

There was a sigh.

"To bring back the dead." answered the Azure Knight.

The woman gasped.

"What is wrong, Ivy?"

"Nothing, my lord." she answered. "It's just, well, I have another obligation...but, I believe, it will not hinder my loyalty to you."

"It won't," the Azure Knight stated. "Or you will die for it."

"I understand, my lord." Ivy nodded. "However, if it pleases you, I would like to speak plainly."

The Azure Knight turned to face the woman. She was almost ten years older than him, the Sword told him. Though she was not the picture of beauty - aside from her curvaceous thighs and explosive bust, she was very thin...too thin for what was considered "beautiful" in those days - there was some kind of exotic beauty about her.

Besides, he had been alone for four years, ever since the _Schwarzwind_.

"You may speak your mind." he stated.

"I am hunting Soul Edge," Ivy began. "The desire to possess it drove my father mad, it-it ruined my family! My father made me swear with his dying breath to finish what he had begun: to find Soul Edge. But my research has led me to believe it is best left lost...or better yet, _destroyed_."

The blade began to speak to him. _Here was one who might pose a threat to us._

"Have you ever seen Soul Edge?" The Azure Knight asked her.

"No, my lord." she returned. "I have not."

The blade "breathed" a sigh of relief. At least she did not know that her lord and master held the blade that she loathed so much.

Or the other thing...

"All shall be well in the end, Ivy." the Azure Knight said, turning to walk away. "I promise you."

"Please, my lord." she returned. "Call me Isabella."

A nod from the spiked helm of the Azure Knight was all that she needed.

_Best to keep this one close to us._

_After all, a threat to us should be kept close, to keep an eye on her. That is all we mean, right?_

The Azure Knight was not so certain.

* * *

><p><strong>(I hope you enjoyed this chapter.)<strong>

**(Ivy has appeared! Her first "outfit" is basically a typical 1580's noblewoman's outfit, which I think they never really gave her something that looked like it [barely even close]. Her typical, leather-bondage outfit lies beneath it, so that she can go to and fro in "normal" society without attracting a mob [you must remember, the clothes of this age did not even show ankle - there would be a riot if Ivy wore her leather outfit in public!])**

**(Here's another note that I will definitely address if I take up _Sophitia_. In the mid-to-late 16th century, there were much different ideas of feminine beauty than we have now. That is why I said that Ivy wasn't considered beautiful by the standards of the time: they preferred some largeness and smaller, pointed breasts [no lie]. So remember to take what I have to say in regards to their beauty [Ivy's, and other women in the _Soul Calibur_ series], it is based on the standards of the time, not on my personal preference or interpretation of the characters. Remember, part of my goal is to ground this in its historical context.)  
><strong>

**(Much more from her in the future, I can assure you. RnR plz, and stay tuned for more!)**


	12. Pain

**(AN: Here's my next chapter, and my reasoning for why I need to up the rating of this story. There's definitely more risque moments to come [and more -wink wink-].)**

**(We have more of Ivy in this chapter, and I hope I'm being in-character with her. My portrayal is based on the games, where she's something of a tragic yet sympathetic [and sexy] character, though not your typical, run-of-the-mill "justice mongering" hero: she's an anti-hero. It is not official if there was anything between her and Nightmare in _Soulcalibur_ while she was at Ostrheinsburg, but I've made that key in my story to something to come. More on that later.)**

**(Now enjoy a very awkward moment. lol)**

* * *

><p><strong>Pain<strong>

Ostrheinsburg at night was not a safe place. The dark magics that the Azure Knight and his sorceress servant Ivy unleashed upon that place changed it from a mere castle to a land of great evil. Under the pretense that it would help the summoning ritual, the Azure Knight coaxed out of the English woman the powerful, darkest magic she had ever cast.

It would all be worth it in the end, he told her. And it would.

The sword told him as much as well. Make this place a leech, where the souls of those unfortunate to get trapped or die here would be devoured by the blade. Then the summoning would take place.

But what about afterward?

The halls of the castle were empty. Outside, one could see Astaroth carrying several people he had kidnapped into the castle. Below in the Donau, several of Calcos' comrades, his army of Lizard-men, were swimming about like crocodiles, eager to find something to devour. It was a hot summer's day, which brought them out into the castle. Usually they were in the lower dungeons, which they made humid according to their reptilian preferences.

They could not be caught dead up top in the cold winter months.

Through the halls of the castle walked the Dark Lord of Ostrheinsburg: the Azure Knight. He was deep in thought, about what would happen with this ritual of theirs. So much depended on speed, on stealth and on their own power, as well as the power of the Sword. It was in his right hand, the massive _zweihander_-shaped Soul Edge. The eye was still where it had once been, but the growth had receded back to the pommel, leaving two sharpened edges for the mighty blade to strike down enemies with in battle.

A sound echoed from one of the rooms down the hall to his right.

It was a strange sound, one that he had not heard in a very long while. The sound of splashing water, as if someone were washing the floors. It was not exactly needful, for the lord had no servants other than his three, and they would never do something that was prioritized very lowly. A curiosity overtook the Azure Knight and he walked down the hall towards the sound.

At the end, there was a room to the right where the sound was the loudest. Turning, he saw a large wooden keg, like the huge kinds that were used in pubs, hacked in two with the one half laying there bottom down. It was filled with water, and a head of white hair was nestled on the edge.

The sound of clanking plate metal rang in her ears, and she turned around to see who had approached her.

"My lord!" Ivy said, nodding an informal bow to him.

Some part of him was happy that he wore a helmet, so that she could not see that he was blushing. Or was this unholy, blackish brown skin that he now wore even capable of blushing?

The tub was not very high, and Ivy's chest was fully exposed.

"Do you like what you see?" she coyly responded, the corner of her mouth twisting into a smirk.

"You're not ashamed?" the Azure Knight asked. The host may have only been nineteen, but he knew that women weren't exactly comfortable about showing themselves to others as men were.

"If I cared about modesty as much as everyone else," Ivy returned with some cheek. "I wouldn't bother with that, would I?"

She nodded to the floor, where her clothing lay: it looked like the bridle of a horse thrown haphazardly upon the floor, more than the straps of leather which covered her modesty, bare minimum at that.

"What are you doing?" the lord asked.

"Bathing," she returned. "An old custom picked up in Constantinople. The Turks believe that washing oneself cleanses the body of impurities."

This was definitely strange. The host knew nothing of this: he was always taught that the skin washed off if covered in water, and so only washed those parts that were visible to the public. But this new custom was something he had never heard of before.

Ivy rose up out of the tub, showing her full, pale form to the Azure Knight. Though his body was corrupt, it was still complete, and every member tingled as he saw Ivy rise up. It was a strange sensation, for the host had never had one whom he felt this way for. The sword said that it was a distraction, but he did not pay attention to its voice.

"My lord," she said. "If I may trouble you, remain a little while."

"Why?"

"I may need help getting into that," she pointed to her leather 'clothing.' "Would you, please?"

Ivy pursed her lips together until it looked like she was pouting.

The lord could not refuse her.

_Don't do it!_ The sword was screaming. _She's a servant, and that's not important._

Ivy tip-toed over to her outfit and picked up the bodice. She slid her long, curvaceous legs into the hoops and pulled it up tight until the thong closed around her groin. The Knight saw that, from the rear, the thong accentuated her hips so much that it almost looked as though she wore nothing, at least from the back. That being done, she fit her breasts into the bustier and pushed it back.

"My lord," she said, not turning back to look at the Azure Knight. "Would you be so kind as to tighten the buckles in the back?"

The Azure Knight walked over and examined the back-side of her bodice. There were three buckles that connected together, but they were so small that he could not do so with only one hand that could easily grip them. But something else inside him, not from the Sword, was urging him to not give up.

He placed the sword against the wall and turned back to Ivy's bodice. Two clawed fingers grabbed the golden buckle, while the left hand slid the leather strap through it. Maybe this was easier than he thought?

"How tight do you want it?" he asked.

"As tight as it goes." Ivy answered.

With the left hand, the Knight took hold of the leather strap and pulled it back, keeping hold of the buckle with the huge right claw. Once he was sure it could go no further, he wiggled it about until the little golden fastener fell into the hole and then he looped the slack through the "belt-loop" on the other side of the leather strap.

The Knight then busied himself with the next buckle, repeating the process. Ivy, meanwhile, slid one of her long legs into one of her thigh-boots. She asked her lord to wait, while she buckled the boot together at the back. She then went on to the next leg. The Azure Knight wished she would hurry up, for she was always sliding her hands up and down her legs as she slid them into the long boots, bending over seductively in his direction.

It made the feeling stronger within him. The sword said it was a weakness that he must discard.

But why did it feel so good?

"Now the last one, please." Ivy said, standing back up and taking a step back towards the knight.

As he had done with the last two, the Knight placed the golden buckle between the clawed fingers of his huge right hand while the left one fed the leather strap through the buckle. But this tightened the section of her bodice around her bosom, and due to her largeness (up there, at least), it would not go all the way. He went as far as it would go.

"Why are you stopping?" Ivy asked. "Tighten it, all the way, just as before."

The clawed hand gripped the buckle a little tighter while the left hand pulled hard upon the strap.

"_Ohh!_" Ivy gasped.

"Are you hurt?" the Azure Knight asked.

"Yes," she said.

_That's what you deserve, b*tch_, the voice of the sword hissed.

"Don't stop," Ivy said, when no response came from her lord. "Pull it a little bit tighter."

The Knight pulled again, and Ivy moaned just a little as the bodice was pulled tightly around her voluptuous body. The two hands then finished buckling her up.

As if knowing that her moves were being watched, she bent over and picked up the straps of her boots, which buckled into her bodice just above the navel (sitting exposed in a small diamond shape patch of skin showing between the upper corset and the lower thong). Her hands she slid into long black gloves of the same leather. She then placed the collar of her outfit around her neck, clasped the buckle of the gloves to each side of the collar, rose up to her full-height, an inch or so added by reason of her high-heeled boots, and turned to her lord.

"Thank you, my lord." she bowed, and then made her way as if nothing had happened.

_Let her walk away_, the sword said. _She means nothing to us, she's just a servant - a distraction._

But the Azure Knight took hold of the blade and walked after her.

"Isabella," he said to her receding figure. She stopped, and slowly turned as he lumbered towards her. "What was the meaning of that?"

"What, my lord?"

"Back there," he continued. "When I was fastening you up, I caused you hurt, but you sounded like you were enjoying it."

"Don't you?" she returned.

_Of course we do_, the sword answered.

"Pain is a natural part of life," Ivy stated. "Birth is pain, life is pain and at last we die in pain. It is nothing unnatural, and those who shun pain are only lying to themselves."

_We like the way she thinks_, whispered Soul Edge.

"Only by embracing pain do we become stronger," she continued. "My father taught me that lesson many years ago, and it has always remained true ever since."

The host had never heard such words before as those she was speaking.

"You are English, right?" he asked.

"My...family was once one of the most distinguished houses in London." she returned.

"Who then do you serve?" he asked.

"I serve you, my lord." she bowed before him again. "You gave life to my sword, which has protected me all throughout my trials. My life belongs to you."

Another voice spoke, one that was not Ivy's and was not from Soul Edge, but did not originate entirely from the Knight.

"What do you believe in?"

Ivy arched one of her eye-brows.

"I believe that pain is a natural part of life," she began. "And I believe in loyalty, and duty. But if you mean whether I believe in God..." She chuckled sardonically. "I'm a witch, my lord. Protestants and Catholics alike damn my kind to Hell. There is no comfort for me in their beliefs...no comfort for heretics and witches."

At that moment, the Knight turned to look at Ivy. The sword screamed that she was his servant, but for the first time, he saw her as more than just a servant. For once, in the darkness that had possessed him for three years, he could at last say that he had found someone who, like Johan Dürer had been for the host...could be a companion, a friend...

Maybe even more.

"My apologi..." The Knight was about to say.

"No, don't apologize." she answered, raising a single gloved hand to his visor, just where his lips should be. As if realizing that she was touching him, she backed up and almost prostrated herself in bowing. "You are powerful, my lord, and power means never having to say you're sorry."

_She's right,_ the sword whispered._ Perhaps she is more useful than we thought at first._

The Knight nodded. "You are dismissed." he said.

She nodded her white head before him, then rose to her feet and walked off down the hall. A pair of red eyes were fixated upon her curvaceous hips, gently moving back and forth in that tight thong of hers.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Since people of that age, especially in Western Europe, did not bathe much, I had to rationalize that. After all, she had been around before she went to Ostrheinsburg, so why couldn't she have gone to the Ottoman Empire, if nothing to look for information on Soul Edge?)<strong>

**(One of my first experiments with really risque material [which is good, since I will need to have more in my other stories, so I need to get "comfortable" with it. lol]. There may be more later on...or there may not be)**

**(Remember to rnr.)**


	13. Valentine

**(AN: Another Azure Knight/Ivy chapter. As much as I want you to read this story in your own depiction, I've just got to say this much: I know the whole world hates _Soul Calibur IV_ [and _Soul Calibur III_ to a degree as well], but I _loathe_ Ivy's voice in SCII. Aside from Nightmare, Raphael, Cervantes, Spawn and Seong Mi-Na, the majority of the voice-actors in SCII were over-the-top, corny kind of over-acting you'd expect to find in _Mortal Kombat: Annihilation_.)**

**(Sorry for the rant, but I liked SCII, SCIII and even SCIV. [though I still can't come up with a "scientific" explanation as to how lightsabers can't cut through regular weapons. Maybe that's why I'm not including guest characters in my story - yes, that includes Link as well].)**

* * *

><p><strong>Valentine<strong>

"I don't trust this woman."

The Azure Knight sat upon the highest tower of Ostrheinsburg alone, his right, grotesque hand gripping the top pinnacle while the left held Soul Edge by the hilt. Hovering before him was a fiery apparition, the same one that had stood to keep the host from taking the blade three years ago.

It was the one who had spoken.

"How long can you keep the charade up?" Inferno asked. "Eventually she will learn that her master is bearing the sword she swore to destroy."

"What of her loyalty?" the Azure Knight asked. "She said that she believes in loyalty, and she swore loyalty to me..." The red eyes of the Knight turned to the fiery apparition. "To us."

"But when she does discover what she's serving...what she's worshiping," the demon continued. "She will make her decision, and her loyalty to herself is greater than her loyalty to you: believe me, I know."

"How do you know?" the Knight queried. "You have not taken her soul."

Inferno was silent, but not for long.

"I've possessed the souls of mankind throughout all ages," it said. "Everything that makes a soul - experience, feeling, behavior, essence - I have eaten in my endless hunger for souls. The darkness and weaknesses of all mankind is before me. I know what kind of person she is, and I know that you cannot hide the truth from her forever."

"Maybe her will can be bent to ours?" the Azure Knight asked. "His soul was..."

"**NO!**" growled the Inferno in supreme rage. "He is dead, he means nothing to us."

"Still," the Knight said. "We could bend her will to our dominion, then there will be nothing to fear from her."

The fiery skull-head nodded.

"That seems wise," it said. "Though she is strong, the will of mortals can also be easily bent to the dominion of evil. Yes, it will be fun to suppress this little girl."

The Knight did not like the blade calling Isabella a 'little girl'.

* * *

><p>Without another thought, it gripped the blade in its hand a little tighter and then jumped off the roof of the tower, free-falling towards the courtyard of the castle. It was not the cause of the Sword, but something that the thing wanted to do, beyond the power of the Sword or the host. Perhaps it was the rush of the wind flowing through the red hair that was growing exceedingly long beneath the helmet.<p>

A heavy boom sounded in the castle courtyard.

The Azure Knight rose from where he was kneeling, the Sword screaming with power. Only its power saved him from being killed by the fall. Turning, he saw Aeon Calcos basking in the sun.

"Where are the others?" growled the Azure Knight.

A hiss came from the reptile, who rose up and crawled away towards the water-way. If only he could speak, it would make for more pleasant conversation. The Azure Knight had spent three years in loneliness. There was no one else except his own mind, which played tricks on him as it was. Calcos was not very talkative, and Astaroth was like a baby in the body of a murdering giant: his place was as a servant, not a companion.

That left only one other person he could speak to, the only human here at Ostrheinsburg...

Speak of the devil...

"Isabella," he said, turning to the English woman, snaking her way on one side of the courtyard. He walked over to where she was now standing, waiting for him.

"My lord," she greeted. "We seem to often find ourselves running into each other." She turned her back-side towards him, her face looking over her shoulder. "You like seeing me walk away, do you?"

The two of them laughed at her jest.

"I'm sure you've noticed the...selection of people at this place." the Azure Knight stated.

"You mean that we are the only humans in this castle?" she asked.

The Knight nodded.

"I have noticed." she responded.

"Walk with me."

The two walked over to a stair-well that led up to the top of the wall. Here they could see the whole of the valley of Ostrheinsburg. The Azure Knight noticed the villages, where the people, surely, would be noticing the affects of their magics. Whether they would succumb or react to their sorcery was just a matter of time.

Isabella, however, was looking also at the desolation around the castle.

"Does what you see shock you?" the Azure Knight asked.

"Not at all, my lord." Ivy answered, walking along with the blue-clad Knight at the top of the wall. "There is no truth in beauty. I am proof of that."

"What do you mean?" the Knight asked.

"Surely you know," she returned. "That proper women do not wear leather harnesses as I do, or anything that shows off the shape of their bodies, for that matter."

"True." he nodded.

"Well I'm not a proper woman, as you can see." Ivy began. "I know exactly what men want: to romp in my lowlands to their heart's content. Even though they make rules that say that women should not dress like such, this..." She waved over her body. "...is the heart of all their darkest fantasies. So I dress like this when I go into battle, so my opponents - all of them men - are distracted just long enough for me to..." She giggled mischievously. "...un-man them."

"I see." the Azure Knight stated. "So when the time is right, you'll un-man me, I take it."

Ivy threw herself prostrate before the Knight.

"I would never even think of betraying you, my lord! My one and only loyalty is to you, the one who breathed life into Valentine!"

"Who is Valentine?" the Azure Knight asked.

"I and my blade are." she answered.

A strange sensation surrounded the Azure Knight. It was not the same as when Ivy was naked before him, but a different feeling, a feeling of freedom, of lawless fulfillment...

The smell of sea-salt filled his nostrils.

"My lord?"

The Azure Knight found himself back on the walls of Ostrheinsburg, his chief servant wondering why the lord stood silent before her.

"Stand up, Isabella." he said.

The woman rose up. He marveled silently behind his helmet at how tall she was. He walked over to the side of the wall, looking out into the north.

"Something troubles you, my lord." Ivy walked up to the parapet of the wall, next to the Azure Knight.

"Just a memory," he answered. "One I wish that I could forget."

"What is it, my lord?" she whispered, her voice low, breathy and very seductive.

Speaking with her was like he had someone in his world, someone who would listen to him and who loved everything he had to say. It was mesmerizing. He felt that he could be open with her, more so than with Astaroth or Calcos. The giant just wanted Soul Edge for himself, and the beast wanted to use it to revert the curse upon him - the one the Kunpaektu priests cast upon him, rather than the gods.

She, however, was malleable.

If he showed her trust, that is...

"My father was murdered four years ago," he answered. "Right before my very eyes."

"Death comes to us all, my lord." Ivy's voice was harsh, as per usual.

"I was betrayed," the Azure Knight said. "Lied to by those I trusted. When I discovered the truth, it was too late." He turned his helmet towards the woman, her white hair shining in the noon-day sun. "That is the reason for this ceremony: I seek to call back my father from the dead, to right the wrongs done to me."

If the lord hadn't turned to look at his servant in the face, he would not have believed what he saw.

A single, pearly tear was tracing its way down her face.

"My father drove himself mad," she began. "Looking for Soul Edge: he said it was the key to the Philosopher's Stone. He wasted his wealth and my inheritance in searching for the damn blade. The physician said my mother died of a fever, but I know it was my father's death that drove her to follow him."

Her gloved hand wiped the tear out of her eye and its trail off her face.

"If I could bring them back," she said. "Especially my father, who taught me alchemy, whom I loved the most, I would give anything...even my soul."

It might just come to that, the sword whispered.

But the Azure Knight was not listening to it, just to the woman.

"I named my sword Valentine," she continued. "After my family name, that I may salvage what's left of it." She turned to the Azure Knight, with a look almost like love in her eyes. "That night, I-I don't know what came over me...I read the spell right over and over, but nothing happened..."

A hand reached up and placed itself upon the gnarled, blackened, horned shoulder of her lord.

"Until you appeared, my lord." she whispered. "You gave life to Valentine." The hand slid down the rough surface of the cold, deformed arm. Despite the initial revulsion by touching the almost snake-ish cold of the hand, her hand glided down the ridges and grooves of the huge arm until it came to rest on one of the three fingers, so big that her hand could barely wrap around a single one.

Her little hand gripped the huge finger tightly, like a baby wrapping its little hand around the finger of a parent.

"I am forever grateful." Ivy whispered.

As much as the Azure Knight was trying to focus on the task at hand, his senses were filled with the smell of the ocean, of sweat, of testosterone.

Of gunpowder.

People were running scared.

The darkness of a crate was broken open. The case was shattered.

A familiar face, looking very much alive, healthy and young, reached into the case.

"What a fine blade this is!" growled the pirate captain.

* * *

><p><strong>(What just happened? The next chapter will tell all [well, all of <em>that<em>, not everything, mind you].)**

**(I haven't called him "Nightmare" since I'm not exactly sure how I could pass that off without sounding like a corny, comic-book super-villain introduction. So far "Azure Knight" works, since you know who that is. [I pronounce it _uh-zhoore_, rather than _a-zher_ for all you phonetically-inclined readers. It just sounds better that way, imo.])**


	14. The Secret

**(AN: Here it is, my first experiment with something this extreme. The rating is _definitely_ going up after this.)**

**(I needed to get my feet wet [no pun intended] so I could be more comfortable with this in my other material that may have some sexuality in them. I'm not a seasoned writer of this stuff, so please bear with me. I give props to _theplaidsheep_. He/she did not influence my story much more than helping me be open with these two characters and depict their interaction well. So thank you.)**

**(I do not own John Milton's _Paradise Lost_. All credit goes to him, "the blind English bard.")  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>The Secret<strong>

Darkness. The Sword wanted to devour all the souls it could, snuffing out the flame of life and covering the entire world in darkness. The Knight, however, wanted something else: what exactly it wanted beyond the resurrection ceremony was not entirely perceptible in its consciousness.

For now, it stood upon the highest tower once again, alone. The darkness of night was closing in around the evil land of Ostrheinsburg. It loved the darkness, and this was the perfect time for this creature. The clouds that would soon overshadow all of this castle, all of this valley and soon all the world, were swirling directly above the Azure Knight at the zenith of the instigator of this darkness.

Soul Edge.

Ever since he had taken up the blade, the host had gotten exactly what he had wanted. He had killed his own father, and told himself over and over that it was someone else, until he believed it. He had convinced himself that he was not at fault and that it was all the fault of some phantom, faceless being. He had even gone so far as to betray his master, forsaking God and honor, in his self-righteous quest for vengeance.

The fool! Perhaps the blind English bard knew what he was speaking of when he penned these words:

"_The mind is its own place, and in itself, Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n._"

The host wanted to forget, and so he took up the sword and was forgotten. Now only the Azure Knight remained, the culmination and sum of all the evils of mankind. The host was weak, cowardly, so fragile that he could break his own mind just to make himself innocent. He could not have killed Frederick Schtauffen, but the Azure Knight could. The Knight was capable of great wickedness, of corrupting the ambitions of the purest, of channeling the malevolent energy of the Sword of Heroes and using it to bring about chaos and darkness. And he reveled in his wickedness, speaking in the words of that same bard...

"_Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n._"

The Azure Knight was already reigning. He had this Kingdom of Sir Stefan, the city of Ostrheinsburg. He had servants, the golem, the lizard and the woman. He had slaves, the souls of those who died in this place. And he had power, Soul Edge. There was nothing left to stand in his way.

_In their way_, the Sword reminded him.

* * *

><p>A pair of heels clicked in a seductive staccato rhythm behind his ears. The Azure Knight turned towards the sound, and saw the figure of Ivy walking hips-first towards the top of the tower, where he knelt in pensive silence.<p>

"My lord," she spoke. "I have not expressed my gratitude towards your lordship for allowing me to stay here, at your expense."

The Knight nodded.

"I'm extremely grateful for your hospitality, my lord." she continued. "Although..."

Silence.

"Yes?"

"I don't know how to say it," Ivy said, in her whispering voice. "But I feel as though you are the only one who truly understands me." She took a step closer to the Azure Knight. "You gave life to my sword, you've given my life purpose: I have not even begun to repay you for all that you've done for me."

"Please, it's nothing."

"No, my lord!" she turned back to him. "It is everything. You have no idea what my life is like." She looked away, out into the gathering darkness. "I'm twenty-eight years old: a hopeless old maid fit for nothing more than a nunnery or a spinster. The noblemen of England would never have me because my family is ruined, and those outside of England don't want an old woman for their wife." She turned back to the Knight.

"I'm useless to their world, but I refuse to simply sit down and wait for death. But you, my lord..." She walked closer to the huge blue-clad Knight, placing her hand trembling upon the armor of the Azure Knight. "...you gave me a reason to live." She looked back into the darkness.

"I thought you said," the Azure Knight stated. "That you'd un-man anyone who tried to have their way with you."

"I did," Ivy answered. She turned back to her lord. It was then that he noticed that her eyes were bright blue, like the waters of the Donau...

Like the host's eyes had once been.

"But my loyalty is to you, my lord." she said in her low, throaty, seductive voice. The hand upon his armor was shaking slightly, and he could see her lip quivering.

"P-Please," the woman whispered. "Let me see your face."

What would he do? It had been a long time since he had seen his face. He barely even remembered what his face looked like. Even worse, he did not know how Isabella would react to seeing his face for the first time?

His right hand reached up to his helmet, closed around it and slowly lifted it off his head.

Ivy almost gasped.

The Azure Knight's face was brownish black, similar to the skin of his right arm. It was not dead-looking, nor did it possess the scaly, cold feeling that his arm had. It looked like the rest of his body but yet seemed to still have some warmth within it.

Ivy's dark pink lips quivered slightly, but her hand moved up to the temple of the Azure Knight, her gloved fingers moving through the strands of blood red hair upon his head.

"M...My lord!" she breathed.

It seemed like time stood still in this dark night, as the two stood rooted before each other. The Knight did not breathe as the woman's full lips moved just a hair's breadth closer to his. Suddenly he felt the embrace of Ivy's soft, warm lips upon his mouth.

It felt good.

* * *

><p>This room belonged to Sir Stefan when he owned the castle. The current lord of Ostrheinsburg didn't use it, for he never slept at night: always on the move, killing, reaping, harvesting souls for the great summoning.<p>

Tonight, though, it would see its first use in three years.

The lord threw his helmet down upon the floor, making a dull clunk as the metal struck the wood. Next he placed Soul Edge reverently beside it, before addressing the removal of the rest of his armor.

Ivy slunk over to her lord, knelt down before him and began removing his fauld, while he worked on his left arm. The right hand almost tore the armor off: he would need to get that repaired later. Next he removed his breast-plate, revealing his chest before the English lady. It was dark brown, like his arm, but aside from the right shoulder, there was no other sign of deformity.

She turned around and began removing her collar, while her lord began addressing the buckles on the back-side of her bodice. Fortunately, they came apart easier than they were fastened. Ivy turned around again and removed the boot-straps from where they connected to her bodice. With a small wiggle, she let it fall to her feet.

Once again, he looked upon Isabella in all of her beauty. Her skin really was as pale underneath as it was above her clothing. Her breasts were large, more so than what was considered "beautiful" by the standards of the time, and sat invitingly beneath her bare neck.

"You never answered my question, my lord." Ivy said, sliding her arms across her chest as she removed her gloves.

"Which?" he asked.

"Do you like what you see?" she repeated. "Are you pleased by your servant? Am I beautiful?"

He was breathing heavier than normal, feeling strange things he had never felt before today. It was as if nothing else mattered in the whole world - not vengeance, not his past, not even Soul Edge - except these two. He could not recall the last time he had felt so ecstatic.

"You are..." he began, his throat drying out as he spoke. "...very beautiful, Isabella."

Something escaped her beautiful, soft lips. It sounded between a sigh and a moan, but there was nothing sad about it.

Isabella placed her hands upon the chest of her lord.

She did not speak, for there was no need for words anymore. The look those blue eyes gave him was quite enough. She slid her lips against his into another kiss, pressing her body against his while she did.

It felt as though they were now one.

Isabella slowly pulled herself out of the embrace and sat upon the bed, crossing her legs together so the contents of her lap would not be revealed: not yet, at least. She began slowly undoing the buckles of her boots, so she could slide them off for the frivolity that was to follow.

She paused.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I..." she breathed. "I trust you." She leaned back upon the richly-adorned bed, stretching herself out to her full length, sighing as she felt the embrace of soft linen against her body.

He could not remember the last time he heard her say this. Every statement that came out of her lips was usually fawning over the one who gave life to her sword, as a servant fawns over the lord they knew has the power to destroy them and yet has given to them a trinket worth their very life.

He reached down and unfastened the pauldrons about his legs and the boots from off his feet. It had been a long time since he had walked barefoot. He climbed onto the bed and like a beast crawled on his hands and knees closer to the white prey, whose chest rose and fell as she breathed in silent anticipation. He now loomed over her, his right arm gripping the backboard of the bed while his left flexed anxiously.

Acting on pure instinct and what "felt right" at the moment, his left hand came to rest upon Isabella's right breast. If he thought her lips were soft, that was nothing compared to what his fingers gripped now. It was warm and inviting, and he felt as though he could keep his hand here forever. As he moved his fingers over the gossamer skin of her bosom, he noticed something he had barely seen before. Her nipples were a very light shade of pink, so light that it almost looked like it was part of her skin. Here was the very apex of softness, and for some reason, he squeezed it between two fingers.

"Mmmm," Isabella moaned, squirming beneath his body like a soft, warm serpent.

His eyes feasted upon the left breast, sitting to the other side of her chest all by itself. Thanks be to God that women were made with two of them. Unfortunately, for him, he only had one hand that was small enough to cradle her breast just perfectly, as his left could. He tried to move quickly to the left, but her hand reached up and grabbed his wrist.

"No," she whispered, placing his hand back on top of the right side of her bosom. "Leave it there."

"But the other..."

"Use your other hand." she returned.

This was what he feared. The right hand, the corrupted one, was cold to the touch and only possessed two fingers and a thumb. They were also larger than the fingers of his left hand. It could easily be used as a shield, or to strike enemies and cause heavy damage, especially with the spikes up and down the arm. Hell, he could have grabbed her whole head with his right hand, and now she wanted him to use it to caress her...

But where there is a will, there is a way.

He shifted his weight onto his knees, then brought one clawed finger up to her neck, cradling the chin of her oval-shaped head beneath the finger alone. Using the utmost restraint upon his enlarged appendage, he slowly moved it down the arc of her soft neck, down the pale white skin and into the valley created by her two breasts. Slowly he moved the finger towards the left breast, caressing it with the back of his finger. Isabella shivered slightly as the cold skin graced her tender bosoms: like a black claw tracing a path along a hill of snow. Carefully he ran the fingernail of his finger upon her left nipple as well, slowly and very carefully so as to not hurt it.

Isabella arched her back, pushing her chest up as her lord slid his long finger across her bosom. His hand went back to the backboard of the bed, supporting his whole weight. Isabella rose up a little and wrapped her lips upon his, joining her and her lord together at the mouth. Like a snake, her tongue slithered out from behind her lips and caressed the one in the other mouth. He made a deep, throaty growl in satisfaction and maybe even surprise. He began planting kisses across her face, sliding across to her left ear-lobe and then down her neck. Her right hand grasped his left again.

"Lower..." she whispered.

Her lord's kisses moved down her neck, while she placed his hand on top of her soft belly, right above the navel. He could get the idea from there.

His kisses were now falling down past her neck while the hand passed gently over her navel. Like a conductor and an orchestra, moving in concert, the hand and the lips moved together across Isabella's body. The hand feels something soft and slightly damp while the mouth finally kisses the smooth high-lands it had been searching for.

A quiet moan escaped Isabella's lips as she felt her lord's mouth caressing her bosoms. She bit down on her lip, trying to keep her sighs to herself. He'll try harder if I don't make a sound, she thought.

True enough, it worked. His kisses moved their way up to the peak of her left breast, while the hand slid in farther into the warm, wetness below: her 'lowlands' as she called them. He covered the whole top with his mouth, allowing his tongue to caress the tip of her nipple.

Isabella squirmed beneath him once again, her eyelids closing to enjoy the moment in silence. He moved on to the next one, kissing it and letting his tongue dance upon the nipple until it became hard, as he had done with the last side. Every stroke of his tongue made Isabella move with delight.

But the lord's vision was starting to grow hazy. A severe rush of blood was occurring right down at his cod-piece, and it urged to be sated.

Apparently, Isabella was thinking the same thing as well.

"If you want to do that," she said, her eyes blinking open. "I must be on top."

She slid from her submissive position and rose up to her knees on one side of the bed, showing her rear for him to see. It was perfect, just as her front had been perfect to his eyes. He laid down where she had, which was still warm from her body-heat. Another deep growl came from his throat as he turned himself over, so that his soft back was feeling the residue of Isabella's warmth.

The part that was not horned and spiked, now leaning over the bed-side.

Isabella crawled across her lord's prone body, placing herself with knees together directly between his out-stretched legs. With both hands she reached for his cod-piece, revealing his manhood to her great surprise and admiration. She stretched herself upon him, now close enough that she could kiss him again if she so desired.

"Be as rough as you want, my lord." she whispered. "Remember, pain is only natural."

She wrapped her thighs around his waist and then began to insert her lord into that which he had only touched before. It was soft, warm and a little moist, exactly as he had felt it. Only now something new was happening, as if he was becoming stronger than before.

Slowly at first, Isabella began to move up and down upon him. The bed creaked and Isabella's breasts bounced to the rhythm she was pounding out. Her lord was now sighing loudly, clearly enjoying what she was doing to him. She continued biting down on her lower lip: she was, after all, still in control of the situation.

I don't have to play this safely, a thought erupted in the lord's mind. I am her lord, and she gave me permission to be rough with her. I'll be damned if I don't!

Without another word, the lord suddenly threw her down upon the bed and turned the tables on her, attacking her lowlands with violent thrusts from his lower regions. Isabella could not keep herself together anymore, and she let a loud sigh escape her lips.

"Yes!" she cried out. "Oh! My lord, yes! More, please! Harder!"

She, the sole owner of her body, could scarce deny that he was striking her exactly where it mattered. Her legs were shaking as she tried to keep herself together, tried to make this ecstasy last as long as possible. She snarled as he drove into her harder, reaching up with her fingernails into his gnarled back and clawing at it like a ravenous beast. Her long, powerful legs curled around her lord like two pythons.

She was now crying aloud, arching her back a little higher each time he made his thrust.

The lord, however, was doing all he could to remain conscious. Though his body continued to move, his mind was elsewhere. Unbidden came voices of the past, faces he had long since forgotten, tried to chase from his brain. A round, lovely face was smiling down at him. A gentleman dressed in armor with a beard held his hand out to him, lifting him up off his feet and telling him to attack again. That same face was now in his hands, ashen gray and lifeless, bloody about the neck: no one else's fault but his own. The steel gray eyes of Sir Stefan loomed back at him as he breathed his last, the outcome of betrayal. The fire of _Herr_ Dürer's vengeance burning like a blazing inferno in his eyes roared back at him, eager to join his sons in death.

And Isabella Valentine's lovely oval-shaped face was looking back at him, eyes closed and mouth half-open, screaming out as her body shivered with the pleasure of their intercourse.

* * *

><p>Another face was looking back at him, the same shape but with darker complexion and darker hair. She smiled as she noticed that she was being observed, but rose to keep her low-cut dress from leaving her bust open to the eyes of this stranger. Unfortunately, her peasant's dress did nothing to hide her curvaceous rear, which he suddenly had a desirous urge to touch.<p>

As she passed by where he sat, completely oblivious of the stranger, his hand, by a will other than his own, slapped her rear with a loud smack. That caught her attention.

"Watch your hands, _puto_!" she returned angrily.

He rose, and from the look in her eyes, and how she took a step back, he was obviously taller and much more imposing than she was or ever could be.

"You bark loud, little wench!" a voice lecherously growled.

She struck him with her open hand. A black fist struck her across the face. Immediately she started to run towards the stairs.

"Come back here, b*tch!" he roared.

Pushing a table aside, his white hand picked up a chair and threw it at her. That was enough to bring her down. As she was trying to rise to her feet, he picked her up by her hair and was holding her within an inch of his face.

"You've got a nice ass, _puta_," he mocked. "Perfect for bearing children!"

"_No! No, por favor!_" she cried out. "_En el nombre de Dios! No!_"

"That's right, you wench!" he growled, placing a hand around her neck. "Scream! God's not gonna save you now!"

He tried to hold her down with his white hand while his black hand moved down her back towards her skirt, looking for the easiest path of entry. The poor girl was kicking and screaming, trying to fight him off her...but it was all in vain.

"**STOP STRUGGLING!**" he roared at her.

His hand reached down and lifted her skirt up half-way across her back. His hand then moved down and unfastened his cod-piece.

It would all be over soon enough.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Even if my little adventure with the Azure Knight and Ivy didn't merit an M-rating, that flashback certainly did.)<strong>

**(And it is for more than just a hot sex scene, I've got some character development to work with and some of the things that happened here are important.)**

**(And now...I'm off to bed. Earned it I have. Goodnight and see you later with a new chapter!)**


	15. The Ritual

**(AN: Okay, this is a very short chapter. I know, I haven't got much room to talk. I turned a single paragraph of Siegfried's back-story into almost nine chapters of material. Well, _Soulcalibur_ seems kind of like an interim-story. Things happen, but not enough that I can explicate much on them. If you think that's bad, _Soul Calibur II_ is going to be worse!)**

**(But I'm up to the challenge and so without further ado, here we go!)**

* * *

><p><strong>The Ritual<strong>

They were lying in bed, side by side now. The coitus was finished. Isabella's chest was heaving, still reeling from the excitement. The sheets were soaked from the hips down where she lay: a small stain of blood lay just beneath where her hips now rested. On the other side the lord of Ostrheinsburg sat on the edge of the bed, his hand in his face.

The sword was speaking to him again.

"All you need is me," the sword whispered. "She is not important."

"Why?" he thought back. "Why did you show me..."

"What, that?" the sword seemed to laugh at him. "That was nothing compared to the evils I have committed in the past...what YOU yourself have committed."

"Answer the question, dammit!"

"Don't play the fool with me!" Soul Edge growled. "You know that voice, the one who committed that sin. You've seen him before..."

Had he? The voice was so heavily Spanish, and the host had never been to Spain in its whole life. Yet those polychromatic hands, the one black and the other white, he knew he had seen that before. But that thing was dead...wasn't it? Could the pirate captain have risen from the dead, or was what he had seen a face from the past?

"Yes, that's right." the voice goaded. "He was your predecessor, and foolishly believed that he could give an heir for me when he died. The fool, he did not know that once we take hold of you, we never let go: death will bow down before you, as I have said before. All he did was spawn a viper who now rises up to bit you in the ass!"

Exactly what 'viper' was the blade speaking of?

"You don't need humans," it whispered again. "They're weak, pathetic, bound by morals and laws that do nothing but get in our way."

"But what about..."

"There are no buts!" growled Soul Edge. "You don't need her either. As long as you have me, you will never grow old, never fall ill, never tire, never need anything - food, companionship, not even God - and you will never die."

"At the price of my soul." the Azure Knight returned.

It was true that one knows not what they have until they have it not. So it was with the Azure Knight. The host was gone, and now there was nothing left for him.

_But I'm still the good guy_, he insisted. _I'm doing this all for my father, to bring him back to life. Everything is going to be better._

Who would ever believe him? Who could ever believe him? That everything he had done, every life he had ended, every murder he had orchestrated, every soul he had claimed, was for a noble cause? Astaroth understood nothing save for destruction, and what went on inside the mind of Aeon Calcos was beyond even the guess of the Sword.

Isabella, he knew, would never believe him if he told her that she was serving Soul Edge, but that he was using it for a good cause. She had such hatred for it, for it had destroyed her family like a viper destroys a nest of...

He remembered back a few days ago, before the incident with the bath. He was walking down the halls of Ostrheinsburg and found her in what had once been a great banquet hall. It was empty now, all the chairs long rotted away and anything of value long since plundered. Ivy was performing a very graceful dance with her sword. The Azure Knight was surprised to see that her blade did indeed live: it broke apart into shards, which flew and danced around Ivy like a serpent on a tree-branch.

A serpent...or a viper...

It was all dawning upon him. The pale skin, the white hair, the lovely oval face, even the curvaceous hips...like a sickening haze and blanket of dust, the truth sank into his mind.

That poor girl was Isabella's mother...and the pirate captain was her father.

If she knew that her true father possessed Soul Edge and gave birth to her as a bastard-daughter, she would hate him and Soul Edge even more.

The red eyes of the Azure Knight closed in realization of the dramatic truth. He was back where he was last time, before he even made Ostrheinsburg his home.

Save for Soul Edge - his life, his power, his tormentor...

He was all alone in the world. He had no other option...

* * *

><p>All was in readiness. The night eternal was now heavy upon the valley, darkest over the city of Ostrheinsburg. The curse had been fulfilled. The very earth now would leech the souls as the physicians believed leeches would suck bad humors out of their patients. The affect was the same in both cases: their victims died.<p>

Only their deaths here were much worse. To die and let your soul sleep with your body is peace enough, but to be forever trapped, tormented in the dark abyss that waited within the black pupil of Soul Edge...the twisted mind of man could not contrive a worse punishment.

"My lord," the black giant announced, kneeling before the Azure Knight. The spiked helm turned towards the golem.

"The last of the villagers are dead." Astaroth reported, sounding very happy about it.

"Excellent," the Knight said. "Return to the dungeon and await my orders."

Astaroth bowed and then rose, walking off to do as he was instructed.

The Azure Knight knelt down, impaling the blade of Soul Edge into the earth. The time was ripe. It was now or never, and Soul Edge would not wait another minute longer.

"Let the summoning commence!" the Azure Knight roared into the darkness above.

A rush of power flowed around the blade, coursing through his body, as the dark power of the Sword of Heroes expanded from around his body. It was almost too much, it seemed. But the blade was in control, and it was getting bigger. Space and time were warping as the souls of the lost and recently dead were being channeled towards this one place.

Ostrheinsburg.

The eye twitched nervously. The Azure Knight caught the movement with his eyes. Something was wrong.

"We have company." the blade whispered.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: It's all coming to an end right now! Don't go anywhere, another battle scene will follow in the next chapter [which will be longer, I promise you].)<strong>


	16. Sword of Heroes

**(AN: Okay, here we switch point-of-views for only a little. These are more or less cameos, but they have a very important role to play in this story, so their presence is important)**

**(Let me just say, right now, that I think Xianghua is a Mary-Sue and a stereotypical Anime-girl. A MS in that she defies historical convention and limitations on her gender - she's a fighter, which I'm not sure if the Ming Dynasty Chinese let women fight in battles [Hua Mulan may have been one, but it is not known if there were {m}any others, and she was pre-Ming]. Furthermore, she is a hesitant little child who happens to have the only weapon capable of defeating Soul Edge, making her stronger than everyone else [even Sophitia, since she walks away from this battle more or less unharmed, unlike our favorite blond Greek milf - I'm naughty, I know].)**

** (Since most of my viewers may not know what a stereotypical Anime-girl is, I will enlighten. Anime-girls are female characters featured in Japanese art [Anime and manga mostly, but also in Japanese-made video games like Soul Calibur and Tekken] who are very one-dimensional and slavish. They have no aspirations or goals of their own, and their only wish is to follow eagerly after the hero [not often a brawn in Anime, but more often looking very metrosexual/scene], especially when the protagonist more often than not, either doesn't requite her affection or just plain doesn't give a damn about them. [some examples: Xiaoyu/Jin in Tekken, Xianghua/Kilik in Soul Calibur and, imo, Misa/Light in Death Note])**

**(Sorry, I know a lot of you _love_ anime [that's the new thing, apparently], but I really can't stand these one-dimensional female characters in anime. Maxi's name is based on the Japanese pronunciation of his name, btw. And the dialogue is translated, since this is a multi-lingual setting being translated to a mono-linguistic story.)**

**(Enjoy)**

* * *

><p><strong>Sword of Heroes<strong>

The three of them were hiding on the edge of a small clump of trees, still a mile from the castle. It sat upon the island in the middle of the river, straddling it like an ugly leech from the pit of Hell. That was their target, and they had all hope that they would succeed in their mission.

The eldest of the group, an Okinawan named Makishi, walked back to their small fire.

"Do you really think," he called out to the others in broken Mandarin. "It was wise to build a fire? What if they see us? After all, it's so dark over there, they'd see anything light we have here."

"We still need the light," the next eldest, a youth in the robes of a Buddhist monk, returned in perfect Mandarin. He was still an initiate, his hair hadn't been shaved off yet. In his hand was a bow-staff, and upon his chest was a bandoleer, with a buckle made of pale blue crystal, that acted as a perfect mirror.

"Whether or not those beasts can see in the dark," he continued. "We can't, and we're the ones who must destroy them."

"Show me the map, Kilik." Makishi asked.

The young monk sat down with his legs crossed together, then pulled out a large leather map from out of his traveling sack. The third member, a young woman, crawled over to the two young men to take a look at the map as well. She scooted her little frame as close to the monk Kilik as she could.

"There are four bridges onto the main island," Kilik began, pointing them out on the map. "We're on the eastern shore. Most likely, these will all be guarded."

"Yeah," Makishi mocked playfully. "I'd like to see that staff of yours deflect a gun-shot."

"Kali-Yuga is stronger than you believe, Maxi." Kilik shot back.

The Okinawan cracked his neck in irritation. Was it so hard for this Chinese monk to say his name properly?

"Still," Makishi continued. "If they have cannons, it won't be too hard for them to start shooting us, even after they've seen our fire."

"We won't attack the bridges," Kilik said. He pointed to the map, where a few buildings were drawn at the south-east end of the river. "This town is most likely abandoned. Surely you've all felt the evil presence once we approached this valley?"

Makishi nodded, and the girl whimpered fearfully.

"There sure to have some kind of boats here," Kilik continued. "After all, this castle wasn't always evil. It must have been a bastion of justice once...a long time ago."

"Well, boats are my thing." Makishi said proudly. "I'll row us to the edge of the island."

"Once we're inside," Kilik finished. "We stay together. There's no telling what the Azure Knight has waiting for us."

"Are you sure you can do this?" Makishi asked. "I mean, is that map trust-worthy?"

"We got it from that Japanese woman in Athens, Maxi." Kilik returned. "Surely you'd trust her." Makishi nodded. "Besides, the Evil Seed came from the Azure Knight, that's what started this damn nightmare. We have to put an end to this: as the keeper of Dvapara-Yuga, I have the duty to end the chaos caused by this knight. There's no other way."

Makishi nodded.

"Then I guess we better get going," he concluded. "No sense prolonging the inevitable."

As the two men busied themselves with hiding all traces of their camp before putting out the fire, the little girl walked over to the tall monk.

"K-Kilik," she stammered. "What if...something bad happens to you? What if you're hurt?"

"I won't be hurt," Kilik returned. "Trust me, I won't lose."

"Please, be safe." she begged.

"You're coming with us, remember that."

"It...It's so scary!"

"Listen to me, Xianghua," Kilik said, placing his arms around the little girl's small shoulders. "Remember what you told me that night in Samarqand."

"T-The story of my mother?"

"Yes!" Kilik said. "She said you had a task to fulfill, that you must cut your own path through a future of uncertainty. Well, what if this is that task, huh? Saving the world from the Azure Knight: what greater task could there be?"

Xianghua nodded her head in realization.

"You...You're right, Kilik."

Kilik then walked over to Makishi and began kicking the fire with their feet, trying to put it out. No need to put water on it, that would only make the smoke worse.

Xianghua, meanwhile, was trying hard to keep her eyes away from Ostrheinsburg - their goal - and on the man she adored like a lovesick puppy after its un-requiting master.

Kilik.

* * *

><p>The Azure Knight was pensive, standing alone in the courtyard of Ostrheinsburg. The swirls of evil energy swam about him, caressing his cursed body. The power was beyond his comprehension, beyond even his desire: it was more than enough to choke even the most power-mad tyrants in the history of mankind.<p>

But the sword was furious. Someone dared to trespass on the unholy ground of Ostrheinsburg, and they must be punished. It was roaring at the Knight to do everything it could to get rid of them. But there was no urgency in the behavior of the Knight: he had no reason to fear.

Aeon Calcos' army of Lizard-men were in the Donau, there was nothing he needed to fear from anyone who dared approach the castle.

An hour had passed since Soul Edge had whispered the threat of approach, but the Azure Knight had not stirred from his place. He had to finish the summoning, there was still much that was left undone. He could not be interrupted, not even by some minor threat. It couldn't be anything too dangerous, for he himself, the Azure Knight, had quickly, in the past three years, made a name for himself as the Scourge of Europe, killing old and young, Protestant and Catholic, men, women and children: none were safe from his power.

Besides, he had Soul Edge, the Sword of Heroes, unlimited power beneath his left hand. What power on earth or in Heaven could stand against him now?

"Don't be foolish," the blade told him. "We are not whole yet."

What on earth did it mean by 'we are not whole yet?' The blade stood before him, looking like a _zweihander_-type blade of power and evil. Aside from the being, the parasite with one eye, that sat in the fuller of the blade, there was no scratch, cut or dent upon the blade: it was not even blunt after striking steel, rock and bone for three years...or even three thousand years, as the Sword suggested.

* * *

><p>Light.<p>

Flashes of lightning were breaking through the darkness. What is this, the Azure Knight thought. Has nature itself risen up to protest the darkness I have unleashed?

As if in affirmation of his thought, the earth began to shake. Stones shook, doors rattled upon their hinges, the Donau roared and frothed, and the very bones of the castle were tearing apart at the seams. Cracks were appearing in the ground before him, and huge crashes were heard as pieces of the bridges and walls were tumbling into the Donau river.

"This has gone on long enough!" the sword roared. "We're in danger, we feel it even now! Call your servants to you, immediately! The summoning must not be interrupted."

The Azure Knight still had no idea what was going on with the fear in the voice of Soul Edge, but he felt that he needed to have the others around him.

"Ivy!" he shouted. "Astaroth! Calcos! Attend me!"

Only the rumblings of the bones of the earth attended his ears, in mockery of his demands. Once again, he was all alone. Was this his fate, to face the evils of this world alone...

With greater evil?

The quakes were subsiding, but Ostrheinsburg was in shambles. The Azure Knight, however, remained stead-fast in the summoning. Nothing would disturb him now, nothing would interrupt the ritual, nothing would keep him...

From his father.

"Stop!" a voice shouted out in broken English.

Turning, the Azure Knight saw the figure of a young man from the East. He was no older than the host would have been now, dressed in the robes of an Eastern cleric, and wielding a staff. But in the eyes of the Azure Knight, the staff was a beam of holy light, and the bandoleer across his chest was a ray of light so pure and so bright that he could not look at him for very long.

"The nightmare ends here and now!" the monk shouted.

The hand gripped the hilt of the sword, rising for battle.

"End?" mocked the Azure Knight. "This is only the beginning! Do you think you can challenge me, little whelp? I've slain kings and warriors many times mightier than you thousands of times over!"

"No need to remind me of your sins," the monk returned, dropping into an attack stance, his holy staff in hand. "I know of them all too well."

Suddenly, dagger-sized fragments of a sword, each of them bearing a single rune upon them, flew down to the broken courtyard, creating a barrier between the Knight and the monk. The voluptuous English woman lept down at her lord's side.

"You shall not stand alone, my lord!" she announced. The fragments joined themselves back onto the hilt in Ivy's hand, reforming her treasured blade. Then, rising to her full height, she turned to the two before her and laughed in mockery.

For there was another besides the monk. A little girl, barely sixteen years old, thin and looking very shy, hid behind the young monk. There was a sword on her belt.

"Get lost!" Ivy shouted to them. "This is no place for children!"

The monk rose his staff into defense. Ivy mocked this with laughter as well.

"Your rod is quite long," she commented with cheek. "But it can only block one thing at a time." She thrust her sword out, and it broke apart at her command, becoming the dozens of tiny fragments as before. One by one they flew towards the two Easterners. The monk began spinning his staff in front of him like a wind-mill, deflecting the sword-shards as they tried to strike them.

"So," Ivy returned, pacing tauntingly about the two, leading with her hips as always. "You want to play, holy man? Very well, but I warn you...I always play rough."

The shards of her sword gathered themselves onto the hilt once again and she held it forth at the monk. But this time, it lashed out like a whip, each blade-sharp moving in concert with each other, to keep the monk off balance. Ivy cracked her whip-sword upon a fallen stone, and the ringing of the sword-blade upon stone echoed through the courtyard.

Ivy laughed to see them run from the assault of her whip. "Running away, are we?" She flicked her wrist, and the shards came together again as a single sword.

"I haven't even taken a single step towards you," she mocked. "And you're already put to flight. How pathetic!" She lifted her sword up again, and it became the floating shards of death as before.

"Tear apart!" she shouted, pointing her open hand, gripping like a claw, towards the Easterners. The shards flew at them faster than arrows. The monk spun his staff about, but they were getting through, cutting his flesh. Only one got through, and was flying right towards the girl behind him.

From out of nowhere, a dagger flew past her face, intercepting the shard and knocking it aside.

"Return!" Ivy ordered, and the fragments of her Valentine blade gathered together, as she turned to the new-comer.

In an instant, it had vanished from the crenelations of the castle-wall and now stood crouched in the courtyard. A figure, dressed in the robes of an assassin, stood before them. An oni-mask was upon the mouth up to the nose, but they could tell from the pony-tail flying behind the head in the breeze, the bulge above the chest and the lack of a cod-piece that this person was clearly female.

The monk and the girl looked relieved.

"Well aren't we cheeky?" Ivy mocked the female assassin.

Immediately, the assassin lunged towards Ivy, drawing out another long dagger-knife and fighting Ivy's sword in its retracted state. The battle moved in a blur, as the black leather and white flesh of Ivy seemed to dance with the movements of the dark-clad assassin-woman. A swift kick to the stomach sent Ivy teetering back, and the assassin back-flipped twice, cart-wheeled then landed in a crouching position next to the little girl, picking up her first dagger-knife.

The assassin spoke a strange language to the two that the Azure Knight could not understand. She then turned to Ivy, rising up to her own height, standing up straight so that her own ample chest appeared even larger.

Obviously the assassin-woman felt the need to stand on protocol in front of someone who flaunted her body to such an ostentatious degree.

"Your stance," the assassin spoke through the mask, in English. "I recognize it. So much like his."

The two lunged at it again, moving faster than lightning.

"I guess that means I still get to fight you," the monk said in broken English to the Knight.

The Azure Knight was now laughing.

The sword had told him of the monk's weakness.

"Do you think to stop me with that stick of yours?" he roared.

"This is no mere staff," the monk shouted. "This is Kali-Yuga, the sacred staff of the Ling-Sheng Su. This rod will be your doom!"

"Ha!" mocked the Azure Knight. "That stick is nothing against a _real_ weapon!"

Taking Soul Edge in both hands, the Azure Knight began to swing the huge blade about, catching momentum with each slash through the air. This was just too easy, he might as well use only his gnarled right fist.

The Azure Knight spun around on his armored heels, slashing another cut across the body of the young monk.

It was only a scratch, not even deep enough to be given much thought.

But the shattering sound was just what he and the Sword wanted to hear. The light on the monk's chest was now a million broken fragments, lying upon the ground.

He went wild, swinging his staff at unseen foes around him, striking the rocks and stones in anger, shouting curses in his strange, foreign tongue. The little girl walked behind him, pleading with him to stop, but her voice caught his attention. He struck her with his staff, then jumped upon her, squeezing her small neck with both of his hands. The Azure Knight and Soul Edge both laughed.

This was all too easy.

Several words in their strange tongue passed between the little girl and the monk. No doubt the girl begging for her life. What little good that would do. The sword told him of that moment, three years ago, when the Evil Seed was unleashed upon the world, that the monk went insane, killing his fellow-monks and even the woman he loved as a sister.

The light on his chest was all there was left that was keeping his fragile mind together.

_One down, one to go_, thought the Azure Knight.

* * *

><p>"I..." Xianghua gasped. "I know you're stronger, Kilik. You're stronger than Soul Edge. I know...you can...fight it!"<p>

Something was happening within the mind of the monk as he tried to strangle this poor, innocent girl...his friend. Wait, why was he even doing this? Something within his soul was screaming at him to resist.

And resist he did.

Xianghua was right. He was strong, stronger than Soul Edge. He defeated the madness of the Evil Seed, and if he could defeat the evil effect of the Sword, he could defeat the source as well. A new strength welled up within his body as he stood up, picked Kali-Yuga off the ground and turned back towards the Azure Knight.

He could defeat Soul Edge.

The Azure Knight could not believe what he was seeing. The Sword also was screaming in protest. It was beyond belief! How could this weakling suppress the power of Soul Edge? None could resist the urge for that kind of power!

"My turn..." the monk panted.

With surprising speed for one already so cut up, he lunged at the Azure Knight, his body repeating the moves he had learned over and over at the foot of the Edge Master. They were not perfect, and the Knight could easily evade the blows.

The staff moved towards his head, but the huge right arm stopped it. With the left hand, the Knight swung Soul Edge at the flimsy-looking staff. It rang as if it had struck stone, but the staff was unharmed.

"Didn't I tell you," the monk returned. "Kali-Yuga was no simple rod?"

The monk was moving faster than the huge, lumbering Knight could keep up with him. Blows were now being dealt from the youth, but only the Knight's armor kept them from being serious.

"Souls, come unto me!" growled the Azure Knight. "Give me strength!"

His power increased ten-fold and he attacked the monk once again.

"A beast, a devourer of souls!" the monk shouted in between blows. "You have no right to live! All the lives you took, without remorse, without shame, without mercy: it is a sin for you to be alive! And I must stop you here and now!"

For hours on end they fought, well into the night. The Azure Knight was not losing energy, but the monk was. His moves were markedly slower and not as strong as before. A kick from the armored boot of the Azure Knight threw him onto the stone floor of the courtyard.

"This is it!" growled the Azure Knight.

With both hands he brought the sword down upon the monk.

In what seemed to take no time at all, the monk pushed himself off the ground with his legs, spun through the air and fell on his hands and knees to the ground. Before the Knight could strike again, the monk said a prayer in his ancient tongue and thrust Kali-Yuga out of his hands and towards his opponent.

The Azure Knight growled in pain as a very strong, very powerful staff ran him through.

"You fool!" the Sword roared at him. "Must I do everything for you myself?"

He was still on his feet, but the monk had collapsed.

Something new was happening, for the darkness was giving way to oceans of fire, swirling around the girl and the monk and the Azure Knight. The pain was gone, but a new, feverish strength was welling up inside him.

Something not of this world.

As if in answer to this new surge of strength, the young girl drew out her sword. It was glowing white, like a single beacon of hope in a dark, fiery hell-storm.

The girl spoke, but in a voice that was not her own and one that spoke to his mind, so that he understood the words directly.

"Behold Soul Calibur, the true Sword of Heroes!"

The little girl attacked the huge, flaming Azure Knight. He brought his blade up to defend, but found that this little jian, this 'Sword of Heroes' struck with power greater than any he had ever felt before. He was being pushed backwards, towards the darkness that was directly behind his back.

All the while, the Sword of Heroes spoke to him.

"Lost soul," she said. "I sense the conflict within. You have brought much suffering to this world, but there is hope yet for you...for redemption."

_How could this be_, he thought.

"Too long you have run from the truth," Soul Calibur continued. "But you can run no more! The power you sought has driven you mad, it deceives you even now, when you think you are the master of the blade. Your summoning was not to resurrect your father, but to bring about an age of darkness and despair by restoring the Evil Sword to its full power!"

The little girl was glowing with a holy light, as the blade continued to attack him, making Soul Edge reel in agony, screaming to be rid of its polar opposite. The inferno about them was tearing apart, widening the hole into the void behind him.

"You must remember the life you once led," the Spirit sword pleaded. "Remember the souls you took, and recall the sorrow of your heart as you held the head of your own father, dead by your own hand."

For one split moment, he paused. His hands were shaking all over.

There was a blinding flash of white light around his right eye, then pain all over again. He was falling once again, back into the void. The Kali-Yuga staff was gone, but that mattered little. He was now falling into nothingness, into the hell he deserved after the evils he had done.

In the end, he was alone.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Cliffhanger! I shan't finish it tonight, for I'm off to bed. So I leave you all hanging with the anticipation of what will happen next!)<strong>

**(Yes, that was indeed Taki who made her big cameo in my story. I'm a little miffed that I let her get away with her big breasts, even though that is both very rare [especially in her case] and extremely impractical. A skin-tight ninja-outfit be damned, her large breasts would make running, kicking, fighting, flying and being _ninja_ in general very difficult, especially without the best sports brassiere out there. Not only do I doubt they make them for sizes bigger than DD, but the brassiere itself was probably not invented back in the 16th century. Idk, maybe she's just so "iconic" that she can get away with being a ninja with hooters that would make Katy Perry jealous.)**


	17. Requiem

**(AN: Here's the next chapter. Like I said, I've got to verbalize more out of _Soul Calibur II_ than I already have to use. I can milk it for at least four chapters, at the very least. So that's my challenge)**

**(Regarding last chapter, here are my thoughts regarding female characters in Soul Calibur [their characters more than their appearance: WARNING, spoilers follow]. Ivy is a typical _femme fatale_, though I love the way she's made more heroic in _Soul Calibur III_ [her 'bad' ending in SC3 was inspiration for that scene in the _Valentine_ chapter]. Sophitia isn't an MS since she gets injured and scarred [_Soul Edge_], and though she does have the good fortune to find a loving husband, everything doesn't work out her way [Tira kidnaps Pyrrha], and she ends up becoming evil - no, she's not dead. Talim is a wholesome character and calling her a MS is just people trying to push a good character off their "pedestal" of goodness. Her "wind" power is shamanistic, not innate. She asks the wind to answer her calls, and because she is a pure character, it obeys her. Cassandra isn't a Mary-Sue, but she breaks everything she comes in contact with [her sword in SC3 and Soul Calibur in SC4 - the latter of which I really hated her for doing]. Seong Mi-Na is more of a "big sister", especially to Yunseong [and she needs some kind of support for her upstairs before she sags in SCV]. Tira isn't a Mary Sue, unless they can be evil: though I thought that wasn't possible. Setsuka is, especially in SC3 where she robs Soul Edge of its corrupting influence: she isn't even tempted to wield the sword. Taki, I'm not sure about: she doesn't have friends, her whole clan got assassinated and she lives a lonely life, killing demons and evil things. Hilde, I'm also unsure about because I still haven't fully explored her past and her character.)**

**(Just a few thoughts on the females of Soul Calibur. Here's a little interlude chapter between _Soulcalibur_ and _Soul Calibur II_.)**

* * *

><p><strong>Requiem<strong>

He breathed again.

He was not dead. The fiery void that had been the last world he had known was gone, replaced by one he did not know at all. His stomach pained him from where the staff had impaled him, and his right eye was only barely opening. The cut still stung like hell.

But there was something different. He was not as he had once been. Looking down at his body, he saw that the dark flesh was gone. His legs and his left arm were still clad in blue armor, but the blackish-brown flesh that once covered his body was completely gone.

Except for his right arm. Still deformed, still grotesque, he wondered if it would ever be fully healed.

He looked down into his evil hand, and saw Soul Edge was still in his grasp. Could he never be rid of it, even in defeat?

He knew he had been defeated. The power of that little girl's sword - Soul Calibur - was enough to banish him into the void and then to this place that he knew not. It was the Sword of Heroes, not this cursed blade. It had lied to him from the beginning, filling his mind with false hope and false promises of resurrecting his father. The sword had gone silent, there were no more words now.

Looking down, he could see why. The one edge of the blade had been broken off, revealing only the fleshy parasite in the center. His precious _zweihander_ was reduced to a mere single-edged sword. Even as he moved the Evil Sword about, fragments of flesh-covered, infected metal fell to the ground.

Soul Edge had been defeated.

The sun was rising in the sky above his head. Morning had come. Just like the moon had risen out from behind the clouds that night four years ago.

_But no, it wasn't my fault..._

That was foolish to even bring up again. He had told himself for four years that he wasn't to blame so many times that now he believed that he wasn't to blame. But there was a distinct moment, he recalled, when he could have done something else. Thunder threatened to kill him if he hadn't killed the man. The youth could have excused himself by saying he was defending his title.

But the man knew differently. He was still the leader of the _Schwarzwind_, and he could have killed Thunder and sent the man away in peace. That would have been the wise thing to do. But fear and a lust for respect and power made the young lad do the worst thing imaginable.

Even worse, he didn't have the balls to admit that he did it himself. For four years he ran, forsaking home and family, even his honor, running from his sins like the plague.

"_You will never run away from your sin!_"

Sir Stefan had told him all of three years ago. Even now his words rang true. That night he was with Isabella - whatever became of her, he wondered - he had opened himself up to another person in a way that he had never done in his entire life. In being so vulnerable, his memories came flooding back into his mind unbidden: all the evils he had committed in the name of vengeance, of resurrecting his father.

No one else's fault but his own.

Like a fool, he had blamed the whole world for his sin, for why he 'had' to do the things he had done. But in the end, it was his choice. He could have killed Thunder instead of Frederick, walked away when he had Sir Stefan in his sights, rode off when Herr Durer told him to stop. Every single one of those times he could have made the right choice...and he didn't. He cut off his father's head, ran the noble Sir Stefan through the back like a coward, and killed the sons of the man who had been, to him, like a second father...and killed all those people just to satisfy the endless lust of Soul Edge: no, of himself. The Inferno told him that he was the wickedness in every heart of man, and that wickedness he let go every time he killed.

Siegfried wept.

* * *

><p>After what seemed like an eternity of regret...of remorse...the thing that was between the host and the Azure Knight rose to his feet, sending shards of the Cursed Sword falling to the ground. It was very unstable, and would be of no harm to anyone. He would make certain of that.<p>

Even if it meant his own life.

There was nothing left to do, but make his way back to civilization. He would go until he found people, and then find his way back to Ober-Getzenberg. His mother, Margaret, knew nothing of his sin. He would return to her, tell her the truth, and then beg her forgiveness.

If forgiveness was even possible.

* * *

><p>The small village was busy with the tasks of the day. The fields needed to be plowed, wheat needed to be milled, water had to be drawn from the well. On the outskirts of the town, a humble blacksmith was at his task while his daughter brought him water to pour over his sweating face. The forge was not exactly a comfortable place, especially around open heat strong enough to melt steel.<p>

The young woman gave out a cry, that caught the attention of her father.

Not but a few feet away from the forge a strange man was trudging feebly towards them. He wore a fauld, greaves and a glove upon his left hand, but no shirt upon his back. A hideous growth of deformity rested upon the right arm, and a sword hung upon his back. He looked ready to faint.

"Bring him here, Letta!" the father ordered, tossing the metal into the barrel of water, sending up a haze of steam. Being a blacksmith was a fine art, one that could not be disrupted by anything, or else the quality of the tool was compromised. But who was he to refuse his Christian duty to a stranger in need?

He ran to his daughter's side and helped her carry the stranger up to the side of the forge.

"Take him inside," the father said, pointing to his hovel near by. "I'll be there shortly."

"_Ja, vater._" the girl replied.

He returned to his smithy, hoping that he wouldn't have to start all over again with his task.

The noon-day sun was still high in the sky, and Lenz was still busy at his forge. Fortunately, he was able to salvage the job he was working with and a good quality tool could still be forged.

As he continued working, his daughter Letta ran back out to the forge.

"_Vater,_" she spoke. "The strange man, he wants to speak with you."

"What?"

"When he heard that you were a blacksmith," Letta continued. "He asked to speak with you immediately."

Lenz nodded, tossing his tools aside and wiped his sooty, blackened hands upon his blacksmith's apron. He followed his daughter back to their house. Inside his wife, Gitte, had the stranger lying upon the straw bed. The woman turned to her husband the moment he walked through the door.

"How is he?" he asked.

"He's ill," Gitte answered. "Some witchcraft has afflicted his sword-arm: it's as cold as death. He has some wounds on his body, but otherwise looks very strong and well. By the armor he wears, he must a lord, or at least the son of a lord."

"Has he asked for me?" Lenz queried.

"I let slip that you were at the smithy," Gitte responded. "And he immediately asked to speak with you."

Lenz walked over to the young man and knelt by his side.

"Are you awake, sire?" he asked.

The young man nodded his head.

"You..." he spoke at last. "You're the blacksmith..."

"_Ja._"

"I-I need a sword." he insisted. "_Bitte_, I need a sword!"

"But you already have a sword." Lenz said, pointing to the blade on his back.

"That wretched thing," Gitte said. "I tried to take it off his back before I laid him down, but he got angry at me! Pushed me away and said never touch it again."

"For your own good, _bitte_," the young man continued. "It's not safe to be handled. That's why I need a new sword."

"Okay, okay," Lenz assured the youth. "I'll make you a new sword. Uh, is there anything else you need?"

"Where am I?"

"Magdeburg." came the answer.

Madgeburg, only four days' journey from Ober-Getzenberg. The youth was happy that he was so close to his end goal, but sorrow filled his being. Could he be able to stand before his mother, the woman who gave life to him, who loved him more than life itself - for surely mothers loved their sons and daughters more than life itself, to stare death in the face and hazard the loss of life to bring their children into the world, he thought - and tell her that he had murdered his father and was also the most wanted, most hated, most evil man in the Holy Roman Empire?

"Please, make me a sword." he insisted.

"As you wish, sire." the blacksmith said. He then turned back to his wife. "Gitte, make this man some food while I re-heat the forge."

The blacksmith departed and the woman went to do as instructed. The fair face of the daughter hovered nearby, gazing upon the scarred yet handsome face of the young warrior.

Her face was the last thing he saw that night when he fell asleep.

* * *

><p>And the first thing he saw when he woke up. But there was something terribly wrong about the poor young woman's face. It was stretched in a horrible caricature of her loveliness, scarred in abject horror, ashen pale and spattered with blood.<p>

She was dead.

Rising up in horror, the Knight saw the poor girl lying spreadeagled upon the ground, her dress torn and bloodied. It was a sad way to die: humiliated, broken, robbed of life and chastity.

Turning around, he saw the sun was rising upon the town in the distance. He was lying in a field someways off from the blacksmith's house, with the dead and violated body of Letta the blacksmith's daughter. Around him he saw several other bodies, presumably dead since they were covered in carrion-flies and some even had rats picking them apart.

All of them were hideously cut and defiled.

What kind of nightmare had he fallen into where half of Magdeburg was dead but he alone was spared?

Looking down at himself, he saw that his hands and legs were covered in blood. But he was not injured in anyway. Was this for certain what he had woken up from? Turning, he saw, close at hand, were two bodies he also recognized. Pain drove through to his heart like a dagger as he saw these familiar shapes.

The body of Lenz was in two pieces, the blade of a huge_ zweihander_ impaled in his throat. The Knight recognized this sword: it was the blade Lenz made for him at his own request. How tragic, that the very man whose kind-heartedness had caused him to take the young Knight in to his house, feed him his food and use his craft to forge a sword for him, would end his life at the hand of his guest.

Another fearful sight reached the eyes of the Knight. Lying a few paces aside, he saw the body of Gitte, looking as broken as her daughter. Her dress was torn, revealing her ashen gray body, covered in flies. The hateful Soul Edge was impaled into her nether-regions, similar to the way Catholic inquisitors would run Protestant women through with a stake during the frequent persecutions of this era.

The young man was disturbed, even unto tears. He thought that there was still some vestige of hope for salvation, yet he saw that he was just as wicked as the inquisitors his father warned him about...no different than the pirate captain: Letta and Gitte's bodies proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

He tried hard to remember when he had committed this hideous act of massacre. But between falling asleep with a full stomach and a sword, and waking up to this horror, there was nothing else he could recall. Was Soul Edge using him in his sleep, forcing him to commit again the atrocities he had committed before as the Azure Knight ten times greater?

The Knight removed the Cursed Sword out of Gitte's lower body, eying it with utter contempt and hatred. He wished that he had come to his senses years ago, and that he never would have picked it up in the first place. Soul Edge had ruined his life, and even now was keeping its grip on his body, if it could not have his soul.

An urge to be forever rid of the blade washed over him. He debated just throwing it into some ditch and running off. That was as bad as refusing to accept responsibility for killing Frederick. If he threw it aside so haphazardly, with no concern for what it would cause, some other fool would take it up and the nightmare could continue. If he did that, he knew that he could never live with himself if that kind of evil was allowed to ravage the world again. The temptation to just leave the responsibility of the evil of Soul Edge to someone else was strong, but he did not entertain the thought for long. He knew exactly the extent of the evil of the Cursed Sword: if anyone did, he surely did. He knew that he had caused some of that evil, and by that, he had a responsibility to protect the world from more of that evil.

He could not simply throw the sword away. He had to be rid of it forever, so that the world may be rid of the evil of Soul Edge for all time.

But he still had to find his mother, and tell her the truth. Even worse, Magdeburg was four days away. If Soul Edge was controlling him in his sleep, he could not spare resting a single night or else find himself waking up in a bloodbath. But he could not stay awake for three or four nights straight. He was in armor, Soul Edge was heavy and he would not leave this sword: it would be an insult to the poor, deceased Lenz to not take the blade he had made for him. He would be weary, and sleep would be taunting him every night. Four days might as well be four years.

Was there no end to this nightmare?

* * *

><p><strong>(I finally found a way to introduce the name. However, I've got it more like his name for the alter-ego rather than just what the world ends up knowing him as. The reason is that, as much as the Azure Knight slaying people <em>could<em> be considered a nightmare, it is more of a nightmare for Siegfried since he still isn't in control of the sword.)**

**(Next chapter soon)**


	18. The Bird

**(AN: That part in the last chapter about 'mothers' was my own invention. However, it was true. Due to uncleanliness in 16th century Europe [I recall you to the mention of the bath in the chapter entitled _Pain_.], infant and mother mortality rates were very high and women were very fortunate if they survived child-birth [the gods must be with Sophitia!]. Just a means of our protagonist/anti-hero reconciling himself with his mother.)**

**(New chapter now, with no ranting! lol)**

* * *

><p><strong>The Bird<strong>

Four days was too long for him.

Too many people died along his path from Magdeburg to Ober-Getzenberg. He wondered if the blood would ever wash off his hands. From one of the bodies he stole a cloak, which he wrapped over his back and his right arm. That was just too foul to present in public, and he could not risk someone seeing Soul Edge. If he was killed while possessing the blade, then the evil would continue to ravage the world.

A line of blood and bodies four night's long followed him on his way to Ober-Getzenberg. His home.

The chapel of Ober-Getzenberg was just as he remembered it. The Protestants did not often create new churches, they just reused the old Catholic ones. As such, it was of the same great architecture that the Papacy used in all of their houses of worship.

This was where the servant had directed him. The young man went to the manor first, but found nothing, just the knowledge where Margaret was instead.

He passed under the arch of the doorway, but did not place his hands in the water-basin. It didn't feel right, infecting this holy site with his evil hands.

Directly in front of him, down a long line of wooden pews, at the foot of the altar, knelt a woman in black, praying fervently.

He recognized the voice, and heard the words she was whispering to God in tears.

She was praying for him.

Against all the odds, she felt that her son was still alive and prayed that he would return safely. He was so close, just a few short steps away from her. His throat was constricting and his hands were trembling.

There was nothing more he could do. Soul Edge, though weakened as it was, held a strong control over him in his sleep. He could not go any further towards her trapped in its power. If he was going to return to her, it would be for good and he could not risk infecting her...or worse, killing her too.

The thought hung like a phantom on the edge of his thoughts. One night, the Sword would take over his body, and he would kill whatever got close to him.

Including his mother.

A tear came to his eye as he tried to banish the thought from his mind. It would kill him to expose her to that evil. There was no other choice, he had to forsake her too and only return when the evil was gone forever.

His thoughts, going back to what he thought about motherhood, made him ache. She was ready to give her life so that he could be born, but he would not let her die at his hand when he could destroy the evil and at last tell her the truth.

He turned his face towards the door, the prayers of Margaret Schtauffen echoing through the vaulted ceiling of the church. His head slowly turned over his shoulder.

"I love you, Mother." he whispered.

The son walked back into the world, turning his back on his family. He could not risk letting her be harmed by his evil. Even if it some call it cruelty or selfishness, he would rather that be his sin than another murder.

The worry-lined face of a mother turned towards the sound that echoed from the door-way of the church.

* * *

><p>Four years had passed since the incident in Ostrheinsburg. The Azure Knight had risen again, and was terrorizing Europe once again. The castle of Sir Stefan was deserted, though something was still ringing the bell in the church. The Cursed Sword was still in pieces, scarred and shattered after the battle with Soul Calibur.<p>

The majority of the blade in the hands of the Azure Knight.

He stood atop a mountain of corpses in his courtyard. Ostrheinsburg was only a ghost of what it had once been in the days of Sir Stefan. The battle that saw the end of his life and the earthquake that broke the castle in the day when Soul Edge was defeated had turned this once proud fortress into a great ruin.

The dark clouds that the Azure Knight had gathered around his castle four years ago only returned at night. His hair, still blood red, was flying in the wind that now was blowing through the ruins.

A bird cawed high up in the sky. The Azure Knight cast his eyes upward and saw a black raven winging its way through the heavy wind. It flew up the high mound of bodies, hovering just a few feet above the Azure Knight. He noticed there was something in its hand. Holding out the huge, deformed claw of his right hand out, and the bird released what was in its claws into the hand: a piece of rolled-up parchment. The left hand reached over and pulled the parchment out.

It was a letter, written in a hasty, angular script. The writer, however, seemed to have trouble figuring out what they were thinking about, because the sentences ran on and were jumbled with scrawling lines, scratch-marks and tears and rips in the parchment were everywhere.

_My Dark Lord_

_You don't know me, but I've heard plenty about you...and I love everything I've heard. The destruction, the killing, the mayhem, the slaughtering, it makes my heart race just thinking about it! I feel like you're the only one who really understands how I feel. Nobody else does, they're all too busy fearing some invisible big brother who's going to kill them if they harm even a damn fly! You, however, know what it's like to revel in murder, knowing that nobody else feels the way you do._

_I feel exactly that way, and I am ready, here and now, to pledge my body, my heart and my soul to you and you alone. We will cause such beautiful mayhem across the world, it will be so much fun! Please forgive this rudimentary way of contacting you, but I know not where you live. If anyone else gets hold of this letter, I'll strangle them with my own hands, while carving a hole into their chest, so I can pull their heart out and shove it down their fucking throats!_

_As a token of my affection to you and you alone, my lord, I have sent this small metal shard. I found it after I'd killed a little dog, it was so much fun hearing it squeal and struggle. I've always felt people are most beautiful right before they die, don't you agree? I don't know what good this metal shard would be, except that it makes me think wonderful thoughts of killing and torture as I hold it in my hand! I can only hope that it will help a kindred spirit do lots of pretty killings._

_Your Obedient Servant_

The Azure Knight looked down at the bottom of the parchment. Within the letter was a small sharp of metal, glowing with an eerie red light.

The moment it touched the flesh of the Azure Knight's hand, his whole arm filled with a strange electricity. The cold was leaving, while the urge of the blade was pulsating through his arm and down to his left arm. Without thinking, it seized the hilt of the Cursed Sword. The eye was blinking fast, the Sword was screaming with delight, reminding him of that night with Ivy.

It found a piece of itself once again, and it was getting stronger.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: I bet you can guess who sent that letter. This scene is based on the introduction to <em>Soul Calibur II<em>. Since we found out in SC3 that the birds came from you-know-who, I thought I would explain how that bird came about and what it was doing with a piece of Soul Edge. I know its not canonical for her to appear in SCII, but I'm thinking about having her mentioned but not appear at all [like in Smallville with the various references to Superman, yet they never just go all out with it, except for the flying thing.])**

**(Tell me if my letter feels like Tira, or if I should lay off on the love of mayhem. Speaking of mayhem, switch the 'may' to 'yam', the 'hem' to 'meh', then turn the m's upside down and you see that mayhem is actually an inversion of YWHW. Just a little interesting side-note there.)**


	19. Another Letter

**(AN: You're not reviewing as fast as I'm updating! That means that any ideas I ask will become out-dated once I've updated my stories. So sad)**

**(So here we go with another chapter about you-know-who. After all, when she confronts Nightmare in Ostrheinsburg in SCIII, we can tell that she's obviously met Siegfried before, and knows that they're somewhat similar, how else does she _want_ to know why he's clinging on to the visage of "that man for so long." So she's got to have at least met both of them before SCIII. Just my opinion)**

* * *

><p><strong>Another Letter<strong>

Brooding in the darkness of Ostrheinsburg, the Azure Knight slowly began to forget once again. Everything that tied him to the host, or what he did before the encounter with Soul Calibur, had go. It was weakness, and he had to forget it. Frederick, Sir Stefan, Herr Durer, Isabella, Soul Calibur, Margaret - it was just too risky to be brought back again.

There was only one thing left for him now: Soul Edge. He would go to the chapel, where he could concentrate, and stretch his will out to sense where each piece of Soul Edge was resting. It was amazing how far they had gone from Ostrheinsburg, as if a great wind had borne them to the four corners of the world and beyond.

It was difficult to pin-point where every single piece was across the entire world, but where they were in number it was easy to locate them. A great many of them were moving across the Mediterranean, the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, looking for more. The pirate captain didn't know when to quit: it still believed itself to be the master of Soul Edge and was trying to become the master again.

On land, another mass of pieces were moving from country to country, with no malignant will. It was curious, to think that a creature could actually have Soul Edge and yet want nothing more out of them other than to find more, just so it could be together. It was as if they were in the hands of some foolish child, who knew not that Soul Edge was a blade of evil. Or maybe it knew and just didn't care?

The lord wrote a reply to the 'Humble Servant' and sent it by the hand of that bird, which attended him until the moment he sent the letter off in its claws. It was hard to write, for the host wrote with his right hand, and it was hard to hold a quill with the huge claw of a hand. In need, learning to write with the left hand came easily.

* * *

><p>Many weeks later, the lord of Ostrheinsburg was alone once again, in the chapel, following the trail of the two beings. The first now had so many shards that it could easily make for itself a second Soul Edge. The other was getting stronger, but it did not cause as much destruction as the first had done. Who was this being that sought the pieces of the Evil Sword, for the sole purpose of having a 'family'?<p>

Perhaps he could concentrate towards that being, trying to discover what it could be.

The raven flew back to the chapel of Ostrheinsburg. It dropped the letter at the feet of the Azure Knight, and he unwrapped it before his feet. It was addressed "Your Obedient Servant" once again.

_My Sweet Lord of Destruction,_

_I loved your last letter. The tales of the destruction of this Soul Edge ravaged my soul! They give me hope to move on, though my life has become quite a b*tch. The raven I sent my first message to belonged to the youngest daughter of my foster parents, and she whined to them when she found the bird not in her cage: the poor baby! They beat me and sent me to my room without supper, telling me that it was not my toy to play with. I was very displeased, so I killed them...it was so fun!_

_Unfortunately, I find myself unable to live among normal people. They don't know what it's like to enjoy the ending of a simple life, and they make all these stupid laws that make it a crime for me to have fun. Such a killjoy! After all, no one cares when they kill the suckling pig for the feast, so why do they care if I want to kill someone for just a little bit of fun? It's completely absurd! I wish they'd all just disappear forever!_

_I'm a vagabond now, roaming from place to place, killing whenever I get annoyed. It's so horrible! Sometimes I'm all alone, with no one to kill! It's so maddening! But then I think about you and all the chaos you've done, and immediately I'm happy again! You've given me a reason to live, a cause to fight for: killing in the name of mayhem! I have another piece of Soul Edge in this letter, I hope you like it._

_I'm making my way south, towards the Danube River as you instructed. I've never heard of this Ostrheinsburg-place before, but what can you expect? This far up north, we don't really hear of anything interesting, especially if its from as far south as the Danube. I can't wait until we're together, and we can do all the killing we want! Kisses and hugs with a severed head!_

_Your Loving Servant_

The same sensation flowed through the body of the Azure Knight. The servant's words were encouraging, making the blade laugh and anticipate kills to come.

Deep down inside, the Azure Knight could feel the emptiness. As much as it blamed the host for what happened with Ivy, he had enjoyed every minute of it. For the foreseeable future, there would be no more companions, just more loneliness like before. His future loomed ahead: a long dark world full of killing, stealing souls, carnage and the end of life. The blade was hunger, and its hunger could not be sated. He doubted not that even if he could devour the whole world with this blade, it would devour him as well. But that was the only choice.

He knelt down, gripping the hilt of Soul Edge. In his heart, he knew the truth.

"There's...no turning back."

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: As far as Nightmare goes, there's not much to say in SCII. He doesn't do very much. Oh well, if "<em>Requiem<em>" counts, then I will have hit my four-chapter minimum with the next one. If not, there's something of an interlude that might work as part of a chapter, so don't worry.)**

**(How far, though, should I go with this story? I'm thinking about stopping at SCIV, since I don't know how it ended until SCV comes out.)**


	20. Nightfall

**(AN: We are now caught up to the beginning.)**

**(When I first wrote this story, there was a lot of influence from black metal in how I would portray an evil character. I know that I loathe black metal, and I really do. I'm not being hypocritical, I'm just using something I know to be evil to further flesh out an evil character. Hopefully you can see how he became evil: with the best intentions at heart, paving the way to Hell for many following after him.)**

**(Back to SC, let me state that though the winged helmet of Nightmare in _SCII_ is definitely bad-ass, that is not the helmet I have him wearing in my story. After all, if you read the bios, the new Nightmare was created using the old Nightmare's armor, and he's got the one spike on his helmet, like _SCI_ Nightmare, not _SCII_ Nightmare. Sorry, I like to try to be consistent.)  
><strong>

**(Here's the chapter you've all been waiting for! It's taken nineteen chapters, but the circle is now complete! I hope I added enough words into _this_ version. [lol]. And I don't hate French people.)**

**(_Watched over by the Almighty Ones, they unleashed their fury_ - Anonymous.)**

* * *

><p><strong>Nightfall<strong>

Peace was a luxury afforded only to the dead. In that kind of logic, the Azure Knight could call himself the 'Prince of Peace', since he brought an end to the short, miserable, painful lives of the peoples of Europe. But the Azure Knight needed no more excuses, no more reasons for the carnage he caused. In comparison to the reign of terror he brought before Soul Edge was shattered, this was the greatest spree of mass slaughter and mayhem he had ever committed.

The sounds of destruction, the screams of the dying, the sight of much blood, filled his mind day to day, even when he charged out into their towns at night to make another massacre. It was feverish, but the Azure Knight enjoyed every moment of it. With each new murder, with each stain upon his blue armor, he began to hate these fools even more.

Who were they to call themselves masters of this world? Mastery did not come from chaining yourself down with laws, with regulations, or with any religion at all. It came from submitting fully to the impulses that came to mind and heart in the heat of the moment: freedom came from being a slave to nature. That was the only answer. The philosophers of this day said so, though under the guise of religion to save their own necks from the ax or the noose. They were learning this that the Azure Knight now knew to be the only governing fact of his life.

And he killed them too.

To them, they were all equal. Man, woman, child, old, sick, slave, free, Protestant, Catholic, black, white, yellow, red, fool, scholar, whatever made them different, it mattered not to him. They had a soul, and their souls could be fed to Soul Edge just the same.

If they got in his way, standing between him and the fragments, they deserved to die.

Deserving to die seemed to be a sentence the Azure Knight passed liberally upon all he encountered. He saw life, full of promise, of opportunity, of everything that made life forth living for mankind. And he hated it, for the blade hated it as well, and now he was so far gone that he and Soul Edge moved almost as one. But it was more than just the lust of Soul Edge that fueled his rampages of death.

He hated them because they were free, truly free. Not bound to the shackles of lust, but free in every true meaning of the world. They were not bound to the will of Soul Edge, nor to its lusts or the infernal lusts of man. They were free to do as they pleased, uninhibited by these lusts, uncorrupted by that evil.

To see something so free and to know that he could never have it, because of his own choice, it made him angry. With that anger in his veins, the Azure Knight was under the power of Soul Edge stronger than ever, and he was ready then and now to annihilate all of mankind just to rid himself of the semblance of life: of the life he threw away.

_Yes_, the Azure Knight grinned menacingly, _they deserve to die._

* * *

><p>It was a gray, cloudy afternoon in Ostrheinsburg. The darkness had not settled in, but still the overcast sky held the whispers of doom beneath its billows. The Azure Knight was kneeling down before Soul Edge, healing from the almost mortal wound it had received from Soul Calibur, meditating. This was the very place where it had happened so many years ago. What exactly had happened was almost completely forgotten, but the ghost of its memory still hung in the silent, dead air. No more letters had come from the mysterious person since the second one.<p>

He himself was whole again as well. Clad fully in blue armor, with his spiked helmet upon his head. The blackish-brown flesh of his right arm was now covering his entire body. No vestige of the host remained, just the nightmare that plagued his dreams four years ago.

The sound of boots upon the stone floor of the chapel echoed like the shots from Hans and Karl's arquebus.

The Azure Knight did not need to look up. The red-yellow eye of Soul Edge was doing the looking for him. A gentleman in the attire of a lord was walking briskly up towards his front. The Sword told him that the man was a few years older than thirty - as old as Ivy had been when... - and was French by the look of his clothing. He carried himself with a very arrogant kind of air.

_Damn French_, the Azure Knight thought._ Always arrogant for no reason._

The Frenchman stood before the kneeling Azure Knight, eying up his victim. He had fought other foes before, with larger weapons, but this thing was clad in blue armor and the _zweihander_ before it was massive.

Of course it was massive, it was Soul Edge.

"_Bonne soirée, monsieur._" the Frenchman spoke. His next words were in English. "I know I should strike first, but let me first tell you that I came before you straight on, when I could have stabbed you in the back, to show that I am a man of honor. All I want is the Sword of Heroes...your sword."

Another fool had come in search of Soul Edge. There was so much alike between this Frenchman and the host, that it brought back flashing memories of an irresponsible youth in his days with the gangs. It was unwelcome and disheartening.

"_En garde!_" the Frenchman announced, drawing his piece for the battle at hand. It was a rapier, almost paper-thin in comparison to the giant _zweihander_-shaped Cursed Sword.

The Azure Knight did not move. His head was still bowed before the Sword. It was healing, the cracks caused by its first battle starting to seal up, but it was not returned to its full strength. He could not risk it being destroyed or damaged in any way.

But who was he fooling? This mere Frenchman's sword was a joke compared to the might of a _zweihander_. It's reach was short, and with almost nothing to it, the sword was good for nothing more than making scratches and impaling: if the sword didn't bend when it touched skin.

And to make things even better, there was no aura emanating from the Frenchman's sword. It was not Soul Calibur, that blade disappeared into the void when the blade had been shattered. It belonged in the void, for without it, without the meddling of the damned Spirit Sword...

Soul Edge was the ultimate sword.

The Frenchman took the Azure Knight's hesitance for weakness.

"You're too weak for that," he mocked, jabbing with his rapier towards the huge sword before the Azure Knight.

Silence filled the ruins of the chapel of Ostrheinsburg.

The two did not move. The mind of the Azure Knight was seething. What right did this fool have to call him, the Scourge of Europe, weak? Especially with a sword like that...

The church-bell rang, shattering the silence like a gun-shot.

"Aren't you?" the Frenchman challenged again, punctuating his words with another jab in the direction of the Evil Sword.

_This fool has barked long enough_, the Azure Knight thought as the church-bell rang again.

His left hand gripped the hilt of Soul Edge. After so many years of learning to write and do things with his left hand, he was now ambidextrous with his sword. His right hand, covered in huge spikes from its deformity, was as good as a shield or even a second weapon.

But this fool had only that little rapier, and he was taunting him?

"**_You conceited, wretched human!_**" the Azure Knight roared, as he stood ready for battle.

The bell tolled once more, signaling that the hour of three had come.

The hour of battle.

The Azure Knight could look upon his enemy now. He was tall, as tall as Ivy had been. His skin was fair, his face was handsome and he had blond hair and blue eyes...like the host had. There was just too much of the host staring back at the Azure Knight to be considered comfortable.

_Is this the host, come back to haunt me,_ the Azure Knight thought.

_No_, returned Soul Edge. _It is just another fool._

One with a pathetic blade. The Azure Knight knew within his black heart that there was no contest in this battle. He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt...

He would be the winner.

The two charged at each other, swords thirsting for blood. The Frenchman spun on one of his long legs and kicked the helmet of the Azure Knight. The knight lunged forward with his sword, but the fencer sprung deftly to his right. Apparently this little fool was a dancer as well. It made no difference, just that he would run more in this battle than the others.

A smile crept across the face of the Azure Knight.

He swung Soul Edge low upon the ground, and the dancer barely jumped up to avoid getting hit. Following up, the Azure Knight struck the French dancer in the face with the pommel of the Evil Sword. He fell back, dazed, with blood coming from his nose.

A growl of rage escaped the throat of the Frenchman, but he kept a cool-head. He distanced himself from the huge knight, hoping that he would make the larger one charge him. Like a moth to the flames, the Azure Knight charged, swinging his huge blade at the Frenchman. With his amazingly fast feet, he side-stepped the blow, leaving the Knight open for attack. He swung, his rapier glancing off the blue armor.

Another swing, but the Azure Knight had his sword up, blocking the attack. He kicked, but the dancer spun away to avoid being hit. Unfortunately, he did not know of the immense power and speed the Cursed Sword gave to the Azure Knight. His foot went out again, knocking the Frenchman off his balance. He was down, and the Azure Knight swung Soul Edge in a great arc, ready to split him in half.

The Frenchman bounced back up, his blade nicking the scaly, deformed right arm of the Azure Knight. He swung again, but the Knight jumped up and avoided the swing with precision and speed beyond the capacity of a normal human, armed and armored as he was.

The Knight charged again, his sword ready to strike.

_Mon Dieu! Doesn't he ever learn,_ the Frenchman thought with arrogance and contempt.

Just as before, he evaded the strike and jabbed the point of the rapier towards the Knight's face. A growl from within the helmet indicated that he had scratched him, at the very least.

Enraged, the Knight reached out with his malformed right hand and seized the Frenchman by the throat. With his left hand, he struck the pretty Frenchman's face with the pommel of Soul Edge once, then took the hilt in both hands and struck again, sending him to the ground.

The dancer and the Knight moved gracefully in their dance of death, exchanging blows. The Frenchman knew his game very well, and so did not get too close enough that he would be struck by the sword. However, he needed to get close enough to make a hit, if only for a moment, then to pirouette back to safety.

* * *

><p>The bell tolled five times.<p>

The dance was starting to get tiresome. But the Frenchman would not give up.

He jabbed towards the Azure Knight. The huge hand grabbed the blade of the rapier, and did not let go. An armored knee struck the Frenchman in the face three times. He stumbled back, spitting blood out of his mouth. A cry of agony escaped his lips as the point of the huge blade tore through his boot and into his left foot.

The giant hand released the hold of the rapier and picked up the Frenchman by the neck, lifting him above eye-level.

"This is the end!" the Azure Knight shouted.

With ease, the monstrous hand threw him away. The human form was thrown into the stone wall, which it hit head-on. The pretty blond face was bruised and battered beyond recognition. Blood was splattered all over the cold stone floor of the chapel. He was coughing up blood, as if he had consumption. There was no hope for him. He had played his hand and lost, danced his way right into the arms of death.

Another soul would feed Soul Edge tonight.

The Azure Knight walked closer towards the victim, slowly so as to increase the Frenchman's terror. Death was coming, but it was not willing to be mercifully quick. It would be slow and as torturous as the pathetic human deserved it to be.

The fool was slouched against the wall of the chapel, bloodied and broken. Another victim of the evil of Ostrheinsburg. Even after four years, the spells they had cast were just as strong today as they had been before.

This man was no different than the rest, just a victim of his own pride. He thought he could take Soul Edge for his own, kill the Azure Knight, the Scourge of Europe, and leave him to die like that foolish pirate captain. Let him make his own Soul Edge if he wanted to, the Knight would deal with the old host later.

The shadow of darkness emanated from the body of the Azure Knight, enhanced by the evil of the Sword. It fell upon the foolish Frenchman, offering no escape, no survival, only doom. The Frenchman was defeated. The Azure Knight loomed closer, two hands seizing the hilt of his huge sword, raising it above his head. The killing strike awaited, another soul to be harvested.

"_For Amy._"

The words the Frenchman whispered stung the Azure Knight to heart. Who was this Amy? A lover, a friend, a parent, a daughter? It did not matter to him anymore, for the host was forgotten, and only the host would make that connection.

But he was the host. He had been denying that ever since he took up Soul Edge, but that was the truth. The host was he, and he knew exactly what this man felt. He was fighting for someone other than himself, as he himself had fought for the memory and vengeance of Frederick in his foolish youth.

He longed to speak, to tell this man that his quest was foolish, that it would only end in sorrow, in misery, in agony, in death: that he would become a part of this hideous nightmare of massacres and evil that he himself had become part of.

But he was too late. In the time that the host's conscious thought came to life, the ambitious Frenchman seized the moment.

A sharp pain tore through his body, reminiscent of the Kali-Yuga staff that tore through his flesh three years ago. A hideous, inhuman roar of pain escaped the lips of the Azure Knight. He felt a hot, liquid substance flowing through his open wound. Casting his eyes down, he saw exactly what it was that was coming out of him.

_Blood._

Black blood, cursed blood. The kind of malignant bile that physicians foolishly believed they could bleed out of their patients in order to heal them, which almost assured death. It was flowing down onto the stones of the chapel, down the rapier that stuck through his body and into the wounds of the dying Frenchman.

It was amazing, how that ridiculous blade had managed to win even though he had mortally wounded the French dancer. No one would ever hear about it, even though the Frenchman tore his sword out and started limping towards the exit by the _narthex_. His wounds would catch up to him in time, as this mortal wound would also catch up to him as well.

It would all be over soon enough. Images of the Hero-King, of Prince Arcturus, of a sea of foolish men and women spanning lifetimes times ten thousand lifetimes, of a black man with a golden eye, of thousands of years of souls, of the dread pirate captain, a beautiful young woman and that damn assassin-woman, Margaret, Frederick, Sir Stefan, Johan Dürer, Isabella Valentine, the monk and his little girl-friend, Soul Calibur, Letta and her family, of the Frenchman who won a Pyrrhic victory against the Evil Sword, rushed through his mind as the whole of his life flashed before his eyes. This would be the end. Today, the Azure Knight would die.

_Alone..._

* * *

><p><strong>(AN:\)<strong>_  
><em>


	21. The Nightmare Ends

**(AN: Well, nobody's bothering to read this story. Or you're reading and choosing to not review. Whatever.)**

**(I put a lot into this chapter, even though its not as long as its predecessor. I was tearing up as I wrote a certain part, since that's not the kind of father I had. It was inspired a little by "Stand Up and Fight" by Turisas. All credit for their lyrics go to them [corny, I know, but it works]. Furthermore, I don't own _The Inferno_, that belongs to Dante Aligheri.)**

**(Now enjoy the epic conclusion of SCII!)**

* * *

><p><strong>The Nightmare Ends<strong>

But he was not alone.

Deep within the darkness of the fiery void in which he had clashed with Soul Calibur, he found himself again. Before him was the Inferno, though it was much different than he had seen it before. Now the beast looked like him, a creature in flaming armor, with a zweihander filled with teeth. The monster was as tall as Astaroth had been, with a single horn in mockery of the spike of the Azure Knight's helmet, a tail snaking from his back like that of Calcos, and a huge pair of wings of fire.

Here he was, the host, the thing thought dead for so long. He was still alive, trapped by coils made of the same evil parasite that grew upon Soul Edge, all of them full of eyes.

The fires around them ebbed and flowed, sometimes becoming bright lines of purest light tracing themselves throught he void. A huge gaping hole in the world, ringed with fire and light, seemed to float somewhere out there.

But the beast, the one that brought abject terror into the heart of the host, was looming towards him.

And he was still trapped.

"You failed me!" the voice of Inferno spoke. The beast, however, was silent. "Now your soul is mine."

He struggled, but there was no escaping the bonds he himself had placed upon himself. Just as the beast, the nightmare he had once been now reflected and distorted to a hideous degree before him, had said that the only way to be free was to become a slave to the lust to kill...

So he had given up his soul to Soul Edge.

It was now that the Sword came to collect its due.

Never before had he experienced such a clarity of mind and body as he did now. There was no confusing over who was the host and who was the man, no names to be exchanged that only he and Soul Edge knew. It was clear as crystal what had to be done. The demon could not defeat him if he had no control over him. If he could only break free.

"Did you think," the Sword continued. "I would let you get away from me after that b*tch Soul Calibur cut your face? No! I attacked you at your most vulnerable, as you slept, forcing you to do as you had done before. It was easy, then, to break your will and send you crawling back to me, like a dog hungering after its own shite!"

Here he was, trapped by his own foolishness, a prisoner of the sword. Unless he could break free, death was surely sweeter than what it would do to him. But there was nothing left to fight for: the sword deceived him into believing he could raise his father back from the dead, when it only wanted to devour more souls. What was there left for him now, that made life worth living?

"I've been waiting for this day," the Sword roared. "for too long!"

But he had to do something, to get free of this nightmare. It was his first chance in seven years, and he would not give it up now. Four years ago he failed, now he knew that if he failed this time, there would be no next time. It would be too late then.

He had to fight. But how could he fight something that was invincible? Others had done it before, most specifically the little girl with Soul Calibur. But the blade was in the void, and wherever that was, it was too far from his reach. If he were to break free, it would be of his own power.

What power did he have to break that of the Cursed Sword? He had accepted it and brought this nightmare upon himself. How could he do such a thing? All the atrocities he had committed, all the evil he had done...

The ghost of a thought came into the tortured mind of the host. For one whole year, he sought the bastard who had killed his father, refusing to believe that it was he himself. But for that year, the self-deluded and self-created sense of vengeance that possessed him allowed him to kill his lord and master, betray friends, go for weeks without food or water or anything that made life worth living.

He had a reason to fight, a purpose to go on, to stand up even though he was defeated, and keep on fighting. But what reason did he have to keep on fighting? He was the one who killed his own father, who brought that evil upon the world that was now about to destroy him.

His father...

"You're pathetic," growled Soul Edge. "Just like your father. It's good that you killed him when you did, for oh, how it would break his heart to see the monster you've become!"

The Sword was right. Everything that he had done would make his father weep if he could see him now.

His mind traveled back to an event so long ago that he had almost forgotten it: before Soul Edge, before the Schwarzwind...

_He was in the most exhausting training with his father. It seemed that nothing he was doing was right, and Frederick kept urging him to do more, to perfect his art, even if it took all night._

_He didn't see the wooden sword strike his leather armor. Any other day and he could have easily shrugged it off, but he was exhausted. There was nothing more he could give, and he fell to the ground._

_"Get up, Siegfried!" Frederick shouted. "You've come this far!"_

_"I-I can't!" he sobbed._

_"You're a Schtauffen," the elder urged. "Not a coward!"_

_"Please, let's do this tomorrow!"_

_"The enemy won't give you until tomorrow!" Frederick was almost crying. "Get up, boy! You're my son, and I'm proud of you! One more time! One more try!"_

For the first time in a very long time, tears flowed down Siegfried's eyes. The Evil Sword was laughing at him, mocking him at his weakest moment, but that didn't make him sad, simply angry. Just like that Frenchman, he was weak, broken and dying, but not defeated...not yet.

"For you, father!" he cried.

His hands were clenched into fists, no longer shaking. A new strength filled his bones as he gave it one last try. The coils of the Evil Sword were like dry vines against his muscles as he pushed against them. They broke away, wailing like some pathetic beast, defeated beyond all possible recompense.

All the pain washed away from his body as he stood up to face the demon, a fire in his eyes like no evil power could ever create. He was weak, broken, and there was no hope for salvation, but something within him was keeping him up on his feet, with only one focus, one goal upon his mind, the one that had lain dormant for so many years.

_Resist the evil presence._

"I'm your slave no longer!" Siegfried Schtauffen shouted.

The Inferno roared in its fury, sending waves of hell-fire in every direction. A white light flashed, and it seemed like it was the Evil Seed all over again, or some other evil erupting now from the being as he freed himself from the parasite. He closed his eyes, ready to embrace death at last.

He truly deserved it, after killing so many people for so long.

* * *

><p>He breathed again.<p>

He thought he would never breathe in this world. He found himself lying on his back, the darkened sky of midnight above his head, along with the evil clouds he had created four years ago. Though the world was dark and bleak, he did not see the world in the grotesque light that he had once, while infected by the parasitic will of Soul Edge.

Siegfried Schtauffen was free.

But the light was still flooding the chapel of Ostrheinsburg. He felt that he was going to Heaven, for many believed that they would see a white light when they died, which meant that they were going to the side of St. Peter.

"Look about you," a voice spoke from out of the light.

Siegfried recognized the voice immediately. It had been four years, but its clarion call was as keen to his ears now as it had been while he was possessed. Looking about as commanded, he saw the source of the light.

A small _jian_ was stuck in the ground to his right. It had changed since he last saw it, for now a snake-like parasite had dug itself into the hilt, creating an evil eye of its own there, with two wings spread out in a faux-hilt. But the blue, crystalline blade with a hollow fuller could not be mistaken for anything else.

"I have been trapped inside the Inferno," the Spirit Sword spoke. "Since my victory over you four years ago. When you broke its hold over you, I was freed as well. Now take me up and do what should have been done so many eons ago, before all this evil was allowed to endure for as long as it has lived."

It was all too much to be true. If this was the Holy Sword, the Sword of Heroes, then it could only be possessed by one pure of soul, like that litle girl from the East. But why was it choosing him for this important task? His soul was tainted with the evils he had done, he was fit for nothing else than the deepest circle of Hell: _Judecca_, the Circle of Treachery. He had betrayed his father and all that he loved, bringing death to them in the process. But the sword remained, waiting there for him to do the task it had given him.

Destroy Soul Edge.

Siegfried pushed himself towards the light, then discovered that he could stand up. He was not as weak as he thought he had been. Being dormant for so long had made him think that he was weak after seven years of captivity. But he was still alive, still moving, and had the strength to endure.

To do this last task.

Before his eyes, the parasite was melting off the hilt of the Sword of Salvation. Freed at last from the Inferno, it shuffled off any indication that it had been tainted by its presence. It could be free and pure, just as it was made as such, he believed.

Another miracle happened as he touched the hilt of Soul Calibur. The tiny _jian_ was morphing even as his hands gripped the blade. The sound of crackling, like ice as it strains under the pressure of heavy stress, and the tinkling of crystals rang as the blade began to grow before his very eyes. The blade lengthened, filling up the fuller and taking on a shape similar to a zweihander. The hilt, two tiny wings wrapped around a single circular center, shattered, becoming pieces of crystal-like metal floating around a glowing center.

The handle of the hilt, however, was sturdy, though nothing more than the power of that glowing orb kept it connected to the blade.

He looked down, seeing the Cursed Blade lying exactly where he had dropped when the Frenchman stabbed him. The eye was roving frantically, for it senses the presence of the one that could destroy it. Siegfreid's hands were shaking as he walked back over to the blade, dreadful thoughts echoing through his brain.

"Do it, Siegfried!" Soul Calibur commanded. "Stab it through the eye and destroy the Evil once and for all!"

He was now standing over the blade, looking at the small, red eye directly in his own. He gripped the hilt of Soul Calibur in both hands, raising it high above his head as he prepared for the final strike. He was ready to do the deed that needed to be done.

He took a deep breath.

Time and space seemed to move slowly as he thrust the crystalline blade of Soul Calibur down towards the evil eye of Soul Edge. The short space between the two seemed to be taking forever to be cut through.

The eye blinked and looked up suddenly.

A hideous screeching sound, the most venomous, evil scream ever heard, issued out of the Evil Sword when the blade dug into it. Siegfried knelt down, placing all of his weight into that one point. He would shatter the sword, and with it, this one great evil would be gone forever. He twisted his blade around, increasing the pain that the Sword would feel.

It began to shake violently, and suddenly a wave of energy emerged that pushed Siegfried back on his back-side. The light was flickering madly, turning from blue to red periodically as the two wills fought to best the other.

Suddenly, all was quiet.

Looking up, Siegfried saw the two blades floating as if suspended by some invisible rope. The Spirit Sword had somehow merged with the Cursed Sword, in a way that he did not predict. Both looked as they had just a few seconds ago, and yet they looked horribly different, as if they were now part of each other. Half of the blade and the whole hilt of Soul Calibur was impaled through the eye of Soul Edge, with the majority of the evil blade beneath it, and coils of the evil parasite were wrapping themselves around the Holy Sword.

_It's not enough,_ he thought. _Nothing I've ever done will ever be enough._

Looking down, he saw that he was still clad in that damnable blue armor. He was alone, so he cared not for privacy. Throwing it aside, piece by piece, and tossing the pieces out of the chapel, Siegfried now stood naked before this embrace of the two soul blades.

"Father," he said at last. "I swear that I will not rest until I have atoned for my sins and sealed away Soul Edge for all eternity!"

He reached up and picked up the two swords. They did not feel as they once had: the Evil Sword was no longer speaking to him, nor did the Holy Sword whisper as it had just a few moments ago. They were both silenced by the evil and goodness of their opposing blades.

With the two most powerful weapons in the history of mankind now in his possession, frozen and impotent, Siegfried Schtauffen made his way as far away from Ostrheinsburg as he could get. After seven years of evil, of carnage and sacrilege...

The Nightmare was over.

* * *

><p><strong>(Horay! He finally broke free!)<strong>

**(I will definitely continue into SCIII, but I need your reviews! Am I doing well so far? Was Tira's portrayal too comical? Who do you want him to cross paths with in the next few chapters? RnR, as I start to do my research on _Soul Calibur III_ for the next several chapters!)**


	22. Memory

**(AN: Still nothing? Oh well, here's the next chapter with the fulfillment of one sub-plot and the continuation [in part] of another).**

**(Enjoy)**

* * *

><p><strong>Memory<strong>

Siegfried Schtauffen had changed. The insecure, foolish child was gone, replaced by a scarred man of remorse. For truly he was scarred, as sure as the cut across his eye that never seemed to be healing. He sealed it up on his own, wondering how it had survived being infected. People died from less, he was well aware.

But there was something totally different. Even though he was now dressed in silver armor, similar to that he wore in the time before he became the dreaded Azure Knight, there was something he could not shake of the memory of that monster. For every time weakness overcame him and he collapsed on his feet, sleeping in the middle of nowhere, he feared that he would awake to find himself covered in someone else's blood, with a trail of dead, defiled bodies behind him and the sword of Requiem, the _zweihander_ poor Lenz the blacksmith made for him, bathed in their life's blood.

To make matters worse, he was starting to see things, both sleeping and waking, that chilled him to the bone. Sometimes he would look at his right hand and see once again the deformed, grotesque claw reaching up at him. Even on the occasion that this did not happen, he would often hear noises behind him as if he was being followed. He had the two swords, Soul Edge and Soul Calibur locked in an endless state of neutrality, with him and surely someone would eventually discover that and try to kill him for the blades.

If only they came after him for so little. Rumors of a knight with a huge _zweihander_-sword echoed through the town, and many believed that he was the Azure Knight, or knew him somehow. At the very best, there was quiet neglect from those who had not heard of him, or at least did not make the correct assumption that he was connected in some strange way to the Scourge of Europe. At other times, the people would come out of their homes, throwing rotten food, shite and sometimes even stones and bricks in his direction, driving him out of town. Even worse, some of those who had lost loved ones at the hand of the Azure Knight shouting out threats at him, or voicing their pain as he walked past them.

Some of the bolder ones would even take up something they could use as a weapon and go after him. Siegfried was a murderer no longer, and he did not want to cause more bloodshed. But if they found the swords and, by some happenstance, broke them from their embrace, the world would be thrown into chaos by reason of the two powerful swords endlessly battling each other.

Siegfried was free of the nightmare, but its memory still clawed at his lucid mind, trying to pull him back into the darkness, into insanity.

* * *

><p>Siegfried sat by the bank of a small creek, listening to the sound of the rushing water. He never really got to appreciate the subtle beauty of nature all around him. Too long he had sat in the shadows, reveling only in the murders he committed. The sounds of a simple stream, so peaceful as it flowed down from its source, whether a river, a lake or a spring high in the mountains, was almost enough to make him forget about the nightmares, about visions of his right arm, or the ridiculous number of people chasing after him.<p>

Almost...

The sound of boots clanking against stone roused the young man from his thought. This was the sound he had been dreading ever since Ostrheinsburg. It meant, at best, that someone was after him. At worst, it was the beast he thought was dead come back to haunt him again.

Turning around, he saw a little girl in beggar clothes with a hoop of metal hanging from her shoulder. Her clothes were very shabby, torn and frayed to a great degree: as if to make matters worse, she was wearing pants instead of a skirt. Her black hair was painted green, as if she had found a large bucket of bright green, brighter than the blades of grass in summer, and dumped it over her head. She was wearing metal-clad boots, which made the noise. From her look, Siegfried guessed, she could not have been but a year older than he was when he first discovered the blade.

"What do you want?" he asked, a little colder than he had intended.

"I'm looking for you!" the girl responded, her voice equally as cold and gloomy.

"Why?" he returned. "Is it because of the Azure Knight?"

A gasp came from the girl at the mention of the name, and immediately her whole demeanor changed. "Why, yes it is!" Her voice was jolly, and her breath was coming out in shallow gasps, as if she could think of nothing else but the Azure Knight.

"Go home, girl," he returned. "It's none of your business."

"Girl?" the girl asked, her voice returning to its cold predecessor. "I've killed men stronger than you, and much older."

Siegfried turned back to the little girl. Just the way she spoke about how she had killed someone disturbed him. It came out too easily, as if she was bragging about some great achievement that brought her both personal pride and, though it disgusted him to even consider it...

Physical arousal.

There was only one person he knew, though not from a personal meeting, who spoke with such contempt for life, who talked of killing like it was a game.

"I'm sorry," he said, rising to his feet. "You've got the wrong man."

The little girl almost threw herself at his feet, grabbing onto his armor with her gloved hands. She looked almost on the verge of tears.

"Please!" she begged. "I have to find him! I have to throw myself at his feet and tell him..." She turned her little head away, as if she was suddenly ashamed. To think that someone who had no scruples at all about taking another man's life was actually shy about something.

"Tell him what?" Siegfried asked.

"That I love him," she said at last. "That I need to swear my allegiance to him, to do whatever he asks of me." She turned back to Siegfried's face, a hungry look in her eyes and a smile upon her face. "Surely you've heard all the stories of brutal massacres he's caused, it's simply thrilling!"

Siegfried pushed the girl back in disgust. This was madness! She actually loved killing so much that she was willing to throw her soul at his feet and kill for him just for thrills.

"Haven't you heard the rumors?" he asked. "Go east to Ostrheinsburg."

"I went there," the little girl returned, the sadness creeping back in her voice as quickly as the happiness had come. "There was a man, who looked like the Grim Reaper himself: black of flesh but clothed in robes of white, with a scythe. He told me that the Azure Knight was dead. I don't wanna believe him!"

The little girl was sobbing so much that Siegfried almost felt sorry for her.

_No,_ he thought. _How can you feel sorry for someone who misses the Azure Knight? Who wants him to exist? What kind of person loves such evil so much that they would want that in their world?_

Just the thought of it made Siegfried feel sick inside.

As if to calm the poor girl down, a blue-jay flew down from the tree-branches and nestled on her shoulder. The little girl turned to look at it, but the bird did not fly away. She held out a gloved hand and the bird hopped onto her fingers, allowing her to bring it up close to her face, watching the blue-jay with wrapped attention.

She turned her hand over, allowing the bird to step into the palm of her hand, tweating and singing merrily as it had in the branches of the trees.

Without warning, the little girl brought her other hand up and smacked them together sharply. Siegfried took a step back, but the girl opened her hands, looking at the little crushed body of the blue-jay in her hands.

She laughed.

"Ha ha ha! I feel much better now!" The little girl was smiling too, grinning across her dimpled face as if she had done the greatest thing in the whole world.

Siegfried turned away. Just the light in her eyes when she killed that bird was unnerving.

"What? Why are you running away?" she called back to him. In his defense, he was not running, just walking. "You don't like killing?" A loud growl came from the girl's direction almost immediately thereafter. "Fine, go and disappear! Who needs a goody-goody popinjay like you anyhow?"

He was equally surprised at how easily her mood changed. True, it was widely believed that men were governed by their heads and women by their hearts, but this girl's emotions were as unstable as her mind was, if she loved killing so much. With even the slightest provocation, it seemed, she could quickly change from being happy to angry and then sad.

Siegfried never before wished for misfortune to happen to a lady, but now he was grateful that the Azure Knight could never come back. She didn't need him, she needed an asylum. And who was she to call him a popinjay when she dressed like that?

_God save that poor girl,_ he thought.

* * *

><p>He must have walked on for who knows how long, the hot sun boiling him alive in his heavy armor. He did not know what he would do next, or even which way he was going. He was just going forward, moving on the impulse to just keep walking, though there was no clear way forward. He bore a heavy cloak over his back, hidden beneath it was the two swords. It was stifling beneath it.<p>

But he dare not take it off, for fear of someone seeing the two swords.

By now he was so weary that he could barely move himself further along his path. So weary that he did not care that two figures were fast approaching him from the front. His eyes were heavy with his weariness, but he noticed the wolf upon their banners as they rode up toward him.

They were now upon him, blocking his path. Two armored soldiers upon horse-back with the banner that he remembered so vividly.

"Herr Schtauffen," one of the guards said. "You're coming with us."

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: And that is the end of that chapter. In SC3, Tira is wondering why Nightmare is clinging to the...like I said before, and she had to have met him before-hand in order to make that connection [that is why she has her cameo]. Was it too comical? I meant for her to take killing like it is something fun, but then to someone like Siegfried, to whom killing is a very big, serious deal, he's repulsed by her behavior.)<strong>

**(And that thing about women being led by their hearts/emotions was taught as common-knowledge back in the 16th century. Just a little bit of grounding this story in its historical basis, like before.)**

**(But what happened at the end? How will Siegfried end up? Rnr, bitte!)**


	23. Wolfkrone

**(AN: A little bit of fluff, but it sees the continuation of this plot-line. After all, how could she say that they had a 'friendship' if they only met once when she was very young? That is the reason behind this chapter.)**

**(Enjoy)**

* * *

><p><strong>Wolfkrone<strong>

Siegfried awoke to an unfamiliar sight. He was in the upper room of an inn, with nothing more than a single bed, on which he lay, and a table with two stools seated around it: there was a door at one end. He was still clad in his armor, with the cloak still covering the blades behind his back.

The door opened and a figure walked into the room.

It was a woman, clad in a coat of red that, based on the shape of it, was made of padding like the stuff a knight wore beneath his armor. No dress or skirt did she wear, but her legs were covered in plates of iron and greaves upon her lower legs, with armored boots on her feet. Her coat protected her modesty, if not her shape, and ended at the neck. Her face was in stark contrast to her un-womanly attire: it was very lovely, with red hair tied up at the back. Her lips were full, and a small beauty mark rested seductively below the left-side of her lower lip.

There was something all too familiar about that face.

"Herr Schtauffen," the woman greeted, nodding her head in his direction. "It's been too long, my friend."

"I'm afraid," he began. "That I'm unable to recognize when I have met you."

"My name is Hildegard von Krone," she answered. She noticed the knight's eyes swell open a little. "You recognize the name, do you not?"

"Yes," he sighed.

"Please," the lady indicated to one of the stools at the table. "Be seated."

He stood up from the bed and walked over to the table, where he took his seat. Hildegard sat down on the other stool, facing across from him.

"It was seven years ago, Herr Schtauffen, that we first met." she began. "Almost feels like another age of the world."

"How do you know my name?" he asked.

"Aside from the ring you're wearing?" she indicated to a finger from his gloved hand, which was bulging. He removed the glove and there sat the Schtauffen ring, the one his father wore.

"I see," he nodded. "How fares your noble father?"

A grimace of sadness came upon the fair face of Hildegard.

"My apologies, Frau..."

"It's _fräulein_." she corrected a little sharply.

"Fräulein von Krone." he continued. "I didn't know. It's been seven years since I was last in your kingdom."

She nodded.

"Several weeks after your departure," she began. "On the day of the Evil Seed, my father went insane. Something happened that turned him into..." She gasped, trying to keep her composure. "Don't think any less of my father, _bitte_. I only tell you this because you were his friend and...as the ruler of Wolfkrone, I consider you my friend as well."

Siegfried nodded.

"Something happened that day," Hildegard continued. "He changed, was transformed into some creature. We...we had to lock him away in the tower, for his safety and for our own. With no sons, there was only one other person in line to inherit the Kingdom."

"You?"

She nodded.

"I have come to empathize the plight of the Virgin Queen," she added. "Such a huge responsibility has been thrown onto my shoulders, I have no time for the niceties of life...no time to be a true lady." Suddenly, Siegfried saw the woman's face harden, having spoken her mind.

Perhaps what he had believed, what he had been taught, regarding the frailty of women was not as true as he had first believed.

"But that's all in the past," Hilde concluded. "As queen, I have the duty to protect my people. The only one who knows of the location of our Kingdom is the Azure Knight. I have only left the safety of my Kingdom to look for information about him, and..."

"And what?"

"To search for my servants," she concluded. "A party of _Landsknechts_ I had sent out to search for the Sword of Heroes has not returned. Their leader is an imposing warrior, but I hope that he has not fallen to some mishap in his journey."

There was a lengthy silence between the two of them for about a minute.

"So, Herr Schtauffen," Hildegard said at last. "Now that I have found you, and given you the freedom to ask questions of me, now its my turn. First, what were you doing wandering off on your own in the middle of nowhere?"

"I was on a mission." he answered cryptically.

"Indeed? And where would this mission take you, if I may ask?"

"That is my business."

She sniffed his response aside.

"Well, then," she said. "If you happen to be going west, into _Spanien_, I ask you to call upon a friend of mine: a Greek by the unfortunate name of Cassandra. Last I heard, she was going in that direction."

"Why unfortunate?"

"Because, according to legend, that was the name of a prophetess whose predictions nobody believed. She prophesied the downfall of Troy but no one listened, and so the city fell when it could have survived. A sad tale, to be sure."

He nodded, though he had never heard of that story.

"Where is she?"

"She went west," Hildegard said. "Looking for her sister. She believes she might have gone that way as well. Her surname is Alexandros. If you find her, tell her Hilde sent you."

"You're letting me go?" he asked. "I thought I was your prisoner."

"On the contrary, Herr Schtauffen," she returned, a strange expression crackling across her face. "You are a friend of Wolfkrone, and therefore are free to do as you please."

He had not seen her make that face since their conversation began. It was like a memory come alive, a memory from a care-free time of youth and innocence.

A smile.

"Then, if I may," he continued, rising up from the stool. "I must continue my journey at once."

"As you wish," she nodded. "Although, I have to ask you one more question."

"Yes?"

"Why do you not remove your armor? And your cloak? Surely you must be uncomfortable."

He turned his back on her, not even looking back as he spoke.

"The penitent do not seek for comfort." he answered.

Hilde nodded.

"_Auf Wiedersehen_, Fräulein von Krone."

Without another word, he walked off towards the door, pushing it open and making his way out of the inn. For a short second he paused when he heard three words, echoing from the open door...

"_Auf Wiedersehen_...Siegfried."

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Another reason for this chapter is to establish Hilde's character. She has more on her agenda than just Siegfried, and I hoped that I didn't portray her as being too emotional. She's not supposed to be very emotional, if you read her bio. As for her garb, it is her p1 outfit, just <em>sans<em> helmet and breastplate.)**

**(I'm going to have a lot of fun with the next chapter! [lol])**


	24. Fire

**(AN: Here is the chapter I said I had fun with...to a degree. It was a little fun, to be honest. Some of which came from my usage of Spanish. Remember that this is _Spanish_ Spanish [like _English _English], and they pronounce _s_ and _z_ like _th_, not like _s_. That is Spanish for you!)**

**(The word for Nightmare comes from _la pesadilla_, a feminine word, which I have modified since Nightmare is obviously not female. It might mean something else, but in this instance it means what I have it mean. Now enjoy)**

* * *

><p><strong>Fire<strong>

Siegfried had never been this far west. Even in his journey of vengeance as a youth, he had never gone farther than Flanders. While under the power of the Evil Sword, the farthest he had gone was eastern France. What lay beyond the Pyrenees Mountains - Spain, the birthplace of the Holy Roman Emperor and still under the power of the Papacy - was still a mystery to the young swordsman.

Even worse, he did not speak the language. This made it even harder for him to find his way around the towns and cities of Spain. Furthermore, as an obvious 'outsider', it would not be difficult for one seeking the 'knight with the big sword' to follow his trail.

But he had to go there. Not just for the sake of Fräulein von Krone, but because of the rumors he had heard. In Holland, he heard rumors of a man from Toledo who was chasing something called _El Pesadillo_ in the Spanish tongue. He collected every bit of information he could get his hands on, the rumors said, and collected them in his grand palace back in Spain. In France, he learned exactly what _El Pesadillo_ meant.

Nightmare.

Only one other person had called him by that name other than himself. He had to know the truth. It was so important that he, a former Protestant prince, would risk going into enemy territory to discover the truth.

He found the estate crowded with many carriages out front, and horses being led to the stables. Sheathing his giant _zweihander_, he made his way towards the front steps, trying to fit inside the crowd and pass by without incident.

"_Señor caballero!_" one of the guards stopped him. "_Anunciarse!_"

"I am a vassal of the Emperor," he answered, in his German father-language. "I wish to see your lord."

"_Bienvenido, señor._" the guard returned, nodding to him and stepping out of the way.

It was still a huge gambit, Siegfried knew. He still had the two blades upon his person, hidden beneath his cloak. But the urgency of this new task was such that he could not risk being in the dark about this 'nightmare.'

Inside the palace, he saw a room so fine that it could easily rival anything of the palaces of the French. Dozens of lords, ladies and nobles walked about as freely as if they were invited to this place. It seemed very odd for someone to be so free with their palace, as if they had no fear for what might happen.

As Siegfried moved through the groups of people, he saw a man looking very nervously here and there, wringing his hands together. He recognized the face, however, from a time of many years ago. He did not want to reconnect with that man again, the fear that he would recognize him as well was too great.

Here was hardly the place for another vengeance battle.

At once, one of the announcers arrived and proclaimed the coming of the master of the house. A round-bellied man with a mustache appeared, looking very proud of his collection. He spoke to the people in Spanish, and as such, Siegfried knew not what was being said. After the speech died down and the people continued milling about his mansion, Siegfried made his presence known.

"_Habla alemán_?" That was the one phrase Siegfried learned quickly in his journey through this land.

"_Ja_, sir." the master answered. "I've had dealings with the Empire before, my good man. You're a _Landsknecht_, aren't you?"

"How did you guess?"

"Well, your clothing, of course." the master laughed. "Are you enjoying our Spanish culture? I know, it is a long distance from your home, but we try to keep up with our European brothers in all things."

"You're a merchant?" Siegfried asked.

"_Correcto!_" returned the master. "It is the new way of things, you know. The world is no longer flat, and trade with the new, flourishing colonies is becoming a very lucrative business. If not for these pirates, tarrifs would be lower and then..._ai, Dios mio!_ The money I could be bringing in!"

"Is that why you've opened the doors of your mansion, sir?" Siegfried asked. "To show-case your fabulous wealth?"

"Well, _si_," he commented. "But another reason as well. I wish for the world to see _El Pesadillo_. Whether man or beast, he cannot hide forever and we will find him and destroy him. It is the duty of every man in this world."

"Who is this Nightmare?"

"You mean you don't know?" queried the master in disbelief. "Look around you! I've got enough things here in this mansion to answer that question." One of his servants whispered something to him, after which he smiled at Siegfried. "I must depart now. Enjoy the party."

Siegfried nodded, then began walking among the nobles, seeing what the master was talking about.

* * *

><p>Every room in the mansion was prepared like a museum, with pieces of armor, broken weapons, stones, paintings and scrolls on display like they were relics of the Church. The more disheartening, however, was the fact that every single piece of this collection had to do with another creature he had known...personally. Blue-shaded armor, weapons with horrible black marks upon them, rocks blackened with evil blood, reports of whole armies being slaughtered by a single warrior.<p>

It seemed he had assumed rightly.

The farther up the mansion's levels Siegfried went, the closer the relics and reports got to the truth. He was now a story or two up from the ground level, and walking along a great corridor lined with a green carpet. Upon a small pillar nearby he saw a piece of metal that made his heart stop. There was a little thing of red flesh that looked as though it was eating the sword like a parasite. He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt what this piece of metal came from.

A few feet more he found next to a map of an archipelago of islands called 'Japan' a piece of parchment framed like a painting. It was written in German, and a translation in Spanish sat upon the pillar beneath it. But he could read the words of the parchment, since it was the language he was most familiar with.

_We pursued the demon along its path of retreat. It was easy to follow: bodies so horribly mutilated and defiled were strewn here and there, as if the Plague had suddenly struck this land. Some of the men fell sick. The captain made a speech and we continued onward. In a plain about half a mile from the town we found him. He, or it, was clad in blue armor from head to toe: a single spike, like a devil's horn, emerged from his helm. His right arm looked like the appendage of some demon, twisted and deformed into a huge claw. He had a great sword in his hand and fought like one of the Swiss mercenaries._

_Within minutes of engaging the Azure Knight, a third of our company was slain. He showed no mercy to young, old, wounded, even our horses were killed or driven off in madness. I shudder even now as I recall the evil of that day in my mind. I myself ran in fear when my comrades fell. I beg my lord's forgiveness and offer my neck to the executioner if my lord sees fit that my death would suffice before my failure._

He could not remember the exact moment when this happened. Of course he didn't. Back then, life was nothing to him and this was probably just 'another slaughter' that was insignificant to his mind.

To their minds, it was a great evil. Perhaps the most wicked thing to happen to them in their whole, short lives. What a horrible way to die: without meaning, without purpose, just another nameless, faceless victim of a being that lived off killing and massacre.

His eyes turned around to the other wall of the room, and he became cold with fear.

A huge painting hung upon the wall. It depicted a battle of a whole army against one single knight on foot. The army was being annihilated, and the knight stood upon a mountain of dead bodies. As Siegfried looked at the image, he found that his limbs were shaking and a cold sweat was pouring down his body. At the bottom of the painting, a gold placard said the name was '_El Pesadillo_', but now he knew exactly what it was.

_El Pesadillo_, the Nightmare, was the Azure Knight.

It was him.

"Find what you're looking for?" a voice asked.

Siegfried turned around in shock to see who had spoken to him. If he thought Fräulein von Krone looked un-womanly, he suddenly saw someone who was the very image of un-womanly behavior. She wore a man's jacket in blue over her upper body, whose coat-tails came down just a few inches covering her rear. An under-shirt of white she wore beneath, though it had no frilly cuffs or even a ruff, just a very short skirt that showed too much of her thighs to be considered a skirt. Leggings she wore that went all the way into her nethers and two white boots, like gentleman boots, were upon her feet. Aside from the pink bow that sat beneath her collar, the band that sat in her golden-blond hair, her lovely face and her chest rising up beneath the jacket, there was little in regards to the traditional signs that she was a woman: even her hair was unbound, lying about her head as far as her chin.

This was the oddest woman he had ever seen, and he had to keep his eyes from wandering down below her neck.

"It's an interesting painting, don't you think?" she asked again. The girl spoke English, though a little broken, and her heavy accent broke through her words.

It was Greek.

"Fräulein Alexandros?" he asked.

"Who wants to know?" she returned. Even the way she spoke was uncouth and common.

"Fräulein von Krone sent me." he answered. "She said that her name was Hilde."

"Hilde sent you, did she?" the girl returned. By her voice, she couldn't be very old, though she was obviously at the age of woman-hood.

"So you're Cassandra?" he asked.

"And you're about to get your ass kicked," she commented coldly. "If your eyes drop to my legs one more time, pervert!"

He shook his head, trying to deny that he had done so. And why was she acting this way? This was hardly how a woman should act, especially in public and most especially in high society.

"You're German, right?" she asked.

"How did you..."

"I heard you reading that report," she interrupted. "This must mean something to you, then. This whole Nightmare thing."

"Huh?"

"I've heard the rumors," Cassandra began. "He came from Germany. It must bite, huh?"

"Bite?"

"Yeah, as in biting the codpiece." she returned, a little annoyed at the knight's slow wit.

He made a sound of utter revolt. "Why would anyone want to do that? It's disgusting."

"I know," she answered. "Yet that's what men want these days." She turned to look at the knight. "Not that I know from personal experience, mind you. Just hearsay."

"I see." he nodded.

She didn't even know how to speak in conversation either, talking about whatever she felt like.

"What brings you so far from Greece, Fräulein Alexandros? Surely it wasn't to mock German princes."

"I'm looking for my sister." Cassandra answered.

"And you think she's in Spain?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," Cassandra said. "But that's where she went the first time."

"What first time?"

"Boy, you ask a lot of questions!"

It was like getting his legs hacked out from under him to be called boy, especially since he was definitely older than her.

"I'm just curious." he returned.

"You know curiosity killed the cat," she retorted.

"Fortunatey, I am not a cat."

Cassandra walked over to the side of the wall and slumped down.

"You're cute," she said at last. "And if you ever betrayed me, it would be the last thing you'd ever do." She parted her jacket a little, revealing the hilt of a sword tucked into a scabbard tied to her belt. "I am armed, as you see."

"Where is this going, exactly?" he asked a little exasperatedly.

"It's Soul Edge."

Immediately, he regretted having said anything. Why couldn't he just keep his lips shut and leave this annoying little girl before he said something incriminating?

"That was what my sister went after the first time," Cassandra began. "Seven years ago, she received an oracle from the pagan god Hephaestus, who told her to destroy Soul Edge. I've never believed in gods or oracles: they give us a long list of rules to follow and then stand silent when bad things happen to us. More harm than good, if you ask me."

_Not only was she overly head-strong and a completely unconventional woman_, Siegfried thought, _she even denies God. As much as the Church loved to depict Protestants as devils and witches, both sides still believed in God and Christ in their own ways._

_But this?_

"My sister can't tackle this on her own anymore," Cassandra said. "I was too young then, but not anymore. That's why I'm here, to find her and together we'll destroy Soul Edge and be done with these gods and their demands!"

Siegfried said nothing. The little Greek girl was looking up at the painting.

"You know," she said. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you looked like that Azure Knight in the painting." She pointed to the painting.

"How do you know better?"

She laughed. "You? The Azure Knight? Please! You're too short, and you're far too thin, and you've got blond hair like me. The Azure Knight is tall and imposing, with a large body, not to mention a right arm you don't have, and a mane of red hair pouring out of the back of his helm like a river of blood."

As disturbing as it would have been, and as revolting as it was to stick up for what Siegfried had come to loathe for so long, he was a little offended that this girl thought so little of him.

He turned his attention back to the painting. There was too much there to be ignored. Someone knew too much, and not everyone was as foolish as this little girl. They would put the pieces together and learn that he had been the Azure Knight. When that happened, he would never rest and never be able to finish his task in hiding Soul Edge and Soul Calibur from the rest of the world.

This Spaniard has gone too far, he thought.

An explosion shook the two of them from their thoughts.

Siegfried drew out his sword and saw Cassandra draw out her own, removing a shield from the back of her jacket.

"It came from downstairs!" she reported. Siegfried was not looking at her, but back down the hall he had first walked to reach this gallery. A figure in a white robe was casually walking through a corridor down the hall, and was just within sight. He had a large scythe in his hand.

"You!" Siegfried shouted, pointing towards the strange man.

A hooded face turned their way, a glint of golden light shining from out of the hood. As soon as the face looked at them, the figure ran.

"Come back here!" he shouted, running after him.

Another figure stepped into the door, staggering with great wine. A bottle in his hand and pistol in the other. There was a scabbard upon his belt. Siegfried immediately recognized him as the one he saw downstairs earlier in the party.

"Well well well," the drunkard slurred, taking a swig from his bottle. "Mind if I join you?" He threw the bottle upon the rug, shattering it. His hand then reached down to his purse, took out a small bag and threw it on the ground. With his gun he fired at it, and missed. While fumbling to place another shot into the barrel, he got frustrated and threw the gun aside then took up his sword.

"Your luck's just run out, you son of a b*tch," he growled at Siegfried. He waved his sword about madly, hacking a pair of candles down onto the ground.

A glare of flame suddenly roared from where the candles had fallen.

"You're not going anywhere," he threatened, stumbling towards another candlestick. "I've locked all the doors, so there's no getting out."

"What do you want from me?" Siegfried returned.

"Like you don't know!" he shouted. "You killed my father, my brothers, raped my mother and sister! You're Der Alptraum, the Azure Knight!"

"You lie!" Cassandra returned.

"Shut up!" he barked. "My business isn't with you, b*tch!" He pointed his sword towards the Knight, though his condition made that his blade shook and he could not point straightly at him. "You're not going to escape this place, alive at least."

Siegfried took out his sword and readied to attack the man. The man's tiny sword was no match to the zweihander, but Siegfried was not ready to take his opponent lightly. After all, he had suffered a great loss at the hand of another rapier-wielder only a few weeks ago. He could not underestimate this fighter.

"Head for the exit!" Siegfried said to the girl.

"No way!" she protested.

"This doesn't concern you!" the drunk man said. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Oh?" Cassandra smirked.

Before Siegfried could make another move, Cassandra took her shield off her back and jumped at the drunk man. She did not even strike him, but he was pushed down by reason of his inebriation and her sudden weight. She slowly pushed herself up and stood before the drunk man.

"Were you looking forward to winning?" she mocked. "Oh, I'm sorry."

The drunk man swung his legs out at her knees, knocking the girl flat on her rear.

"Ow!" she exclaimed, rubbing her sore hind-quarters as she awkwardly rose to her feet.

Feeling strangely galant, Siegfried jumped into the battle. The drunk man had enough sense to move aside and miss the huge zweihander that came swinging after him.

"Is that all you got?" he slurred as he stumbled to his feet. He collapsed against the wall, face-to-face now with the painting of the Azure Knight. "You bastard!" He shouted at the painting, running his sabre through the canvas. "You took my father, my brothers, my whole family from me! I'll make you pay!"

It was maddening, his frenzy against the inanimate painting. But when his sword nicked the wall and he could go through it no more, he tore the painting down and knocked another candlestick onto its ruin.

A sudden explosion followed as a plank fell from the ceiling onto the floor. It was on fire. The three of them suddenly noticed just that the palace was now in flames. The air was hot and stiflingly dry, parching their throats, drying their backs and baking Siegfried alive in his heavy armor.

"You're mad!" Siegfried roared above the sound of the fire. "We'll all die in here!"

"That Azure bastard made me so!" the drunk man roared. "You..." He pointed to Siegfried. "Made me so. I have nothing! Nothing! My family was reduced to rubble thanks to you! If I have to die, to take you down with me, then so be it!"

He jumped at Siegfried, throwing the two into a kind of embrace as he struck his fists helplessly at Siegfried's breastplate. The floor creaked in protest beneath their feet as they fought long and hard, the one trying to push the other off, who was trying to kill him with nothing more than fists and harsh language.

"Hey!" Cassandra cried out. "Come back here!"

Siegfried turned and saw her running down the other side of the hallway, after a shadow that was cast upon the wall by reason of the flames. The moment she had moved within ten feet from him, the floor gave way, breaking behind her and cutting the two off irrevocably.

He turned his attention at last to the strange drunk-man. With two hands he pushed him back off himself then gripped Requiem with both hands.

"Forgive me!" he shouted above the roar of the flames.

He drove the blade into the drunk man's chest. Murder, yes. But better that he kill this man than for Soul Edge to be unleashed upon the world as it had been while he was possessed by it.

With another swift motion, he took the blade out and the drunk man stepped back. His body failing, he fell to the floor, clutching his wound.

"Although," Siegfried said at last. "I do not expect forgiveness."

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: In regards to Cassandra's behavior, I made it that she's more of a modern woman in the 16th century. Her behavior, her clothing and almost everything about her screams of atypical for 16th century women. I cannot see her in those huge dresses with the hoop-skirts, the powdered ruff, her hair tied back and sequestered into a coif. That just isn't Cassandra. And I'm sure there were people like today's women back in the earlier times, how else did they ever think to start fighting for their rights if they were <em>all<em> submissive?)**

**(As for the other parts of her personality [spoiler alerts], I still don't think Soul Calibur is evil. If anything, Cassandra is just like everyone else of today - she has no faith in 'higher powers' and blames them for all her problems. That's why she destroyed Soul Calibur in SC4, not because it was evil. Aside from that, she breaks everything that comes in contact with her [SC3 bio, she breaks the weapons she stole. SC3 ending, she breaks Soul Edge _and_ the weapon Rothion made for her. SC4, she breaks Soul Edge _and_ Soul Calibur]. Might make her appear one last time to _break_ something else.)**


	25. Ouroboros

**(AN: Sorry for the long wait for this next chapter, but it was starting to get a little blah-sey. Added a few lol-moments, and some Greek speaking for one of our characters. Another appearance as well, and we'll be moving along with this story eventually. I've cut some of his story short, since it wouldn't make sense for him to just run about for no reason. However, I will still have this _SCIII_ segment at four chapters at the very least. So don't worry)**

* * *

><p><strong>Ouroboros<strong>

Siegfried's eyes slowly crept open as he rose from his slumber. His last thoughts were of death in a raging inferno. There was no way out of the fire, it seemed. He had expected to find himself in the fires of Hell, for surely that was where he was doomed to go.

Instead, he saw a beautiful face staring down at him.

_If this is Heaven_, he thought, _then I don't deserve this._

"Wake up, you!" A sudden rap came upon his aching head. There was no doubt that he was not in Heaven, for this woman was with him, rudely bringing him back to the world of the living.

She was also covered in blackened soot, and her blond hair was messy.

"Don't expect me to save you next time, okay?" Cassandra queried.

Siegfried pushed himself into a sitting position from off her lap. The thoughts that were arising in his head about this obstinate little girl were such that he did not want to entertain.

"_Was..._" He had lapsed back into his father-language, then remembered that the Greek-woman couldn't speak it. "What happened?"

"I was running out of the place," she began. "When I found you lying on your face, knocked out cold. Didn't want your death on my conscience. Nobody deserves to die, right?"

_I do_, Siegfried thought. _Once I thought that all but me deserved to die, just to satisfy that damned blade's endless thirst for souls. But now the wheel has turned and the only one who truly deserves death...is me._

His body ached. He must have been close to the heat, for he could feel on his skin where the rings of his chain-mail had burned through the padding and onto his skin in places, especially his wrists, ankles and neck. His armor was covered in black soot, and he could tell that his face was probably covered in it as well.

"My sword!" he cried out, noticing there was something missing. "Where's my sword?"

Cassandra hid her hands behind her back and lowered her head in what looked like shame. It was a very odd gesture for her, in Siegfried's eyes, since he had never seen her behave as such.

"Mmmm," she mumbled. "I'm sorry. There was nothing I could do."

"What are you saying?" Siegfried asked, his voice raising in shock.

Cassandra turned her face to her right. Siegfried almost cried in shock at what he saw. Laying there was the Requiem _zweihander_, the blade forged by Lenz the Blacksmith of Magdeberg. While possessed by the Evil Sword in his sleep, he had killed him and raped his wife and daughter. Seeing the horror that he had done, he vowed at last that he would not rest until he had destroyed Soul Edge and done what he could to end the evil he had caused. This sword was his requiem for all those he had killed, the eternal memory of his vow of remembrance.

It lay in two pieces, cracked along the hilt.

"I..." Cassandra mumbled. "I touched it and-and it just..."

Siegfried's hands were shaking.

"You broke my sword?" he growled, his voice shaking in his anger.

"It was an accident!" she commented.

_Yes_, he thought. _It was an accident. One that could have been prevented if that fool hadn't attacked him just then: hadn't burned down the mansion. Whatever his goal was, whether to kill him or destroy the evidence of the Azure Knight, he was to blame, not this silly girl._

Either way, he was too tired to do anything right now.

He just nodded.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," Cassandra said. "As much as I enjoy showing up chauvinist-pigs like yourself by saving them from burning buildings, I've got to find my sister. So..._antío_, Sir Knight."

"Huh? Oh, uh, _auf wiedersehen_." Siegfried nodded.

Cassandra Alexandros pushed herself to her feet and then walked off into the night. Siegfried looked after her, his eyes drawn towards her rear-end.

While looking after her, Siegfried changed to notice his surroundings. He was out of doors, somewhere in a forest. The mansion must have been a few miles out of downtown Toledo. Looking back, he could see the sun rising through the trees. Ruins of the blackened, fire-devoured mansion rested grimly upon their foundations.

He had to leave the scene before he was tied to the destruction. As a Protestant, his denial of the destruction of a wealthy merchant's house in Catholic Spain would not be believed: best to not be entangled with it.

Besides, he had a task to undertake: how to seal the swords he hid beneath his back.

Were they still there? His heart stopped at the sudden thought of the swords gone. He removed his cloak and reached back behind his back. His fingers clasped around the icy yet soft grip of the hilt of Soul Calibur. His heart beat again and he breathed once more. They were still there.

Now he had to get rid of them for good. Any knowledge or information about Soul Edge and the Azure Knight vanished in the fire. It was useless to seek anything else regarding Soul Edge. He knew not of anyone else who knew about Soul Edge as intimately as he did. Wherever Ivy was, she knew nothing about Soul Edge...did she?

For all he knew, she was dead and gone like that Okinawan pirate Astaroth had slain that day at Ostrheinsburg. Who else knew about Soul Edge who could be a threat to him? The monk and his Chinese girlfriend he fought that day four years ago, but they thought he was dead as well, for they had never returned and he had Soul Calibur with him as well. The Frenchman's presence he could not guess. The power that allowed him to sense the presence of those connected with Soul Edge was gone, now that he was not under its power.

_Power_. There might be no one with the knowledge of Soul Edge that he could think of, but what about power? Could there be one strong enough to destroy Soul Edge all-together? That seemed too good to be true, for he himself had ran its evil eye through with Soul Calibur, and all that happened was silencing of the two blades. But the dread pirate had been defeated, and he himself had been defeated by a little girl - one who only defeated him because of Soul Calibur. At least in the case of the pirate, it meant something.

There were some powerful enough to challenge Soul Edge and, perhaps, destroy it.

* * *

><p>The white-robed figure moved quietly through the crowds. To these fat, drunken gamblers, one black man was nothing to them. His white robes did much to conceal his skin-color, though it was out of necessity more than a desire to be one with the white peoples of Europe.<p>

He recalled the village, where everyone was dark-colored and he once foolishly believed that all were such.

These foolish white men meant nothing to him. In ten to twenty years, they'd all be dead. But there was one he had to speak with, one they were all betting upon or against.

The one in the ring.

"_Scusi, signore!_" a voice angrily shouted. The white-robed figure looked at the one who spoke. Though he spoke Italian, like everyone else in the gambling pit, his clothes bespoke of a French sop.

"Going to the fights, I see?" the Frenchman asked. He looked at the white robes and saw a golden amulet hanging from his neck. Engraved upon the rim was a serpent eating its tail, and upon the center was a _lemniscate_, made of emeralds.

"_Dio mio, signore!_" exclaimed the Frenchman. "_C'est magnifique!_ You must like fine jewelry. I'd keep an eye on it if I were you, though. These fiends will devour you without a second thought for that amulet."

The white robed man said nothing but continued on his way.

"_Attendre, monsieur!_" he urged, stepping in front of the white-robed man. "Le Bello is your friend. And as one friend speaking to another, I would like but a minute of your time."

"Not now." the white-robed man said in a low voice.

"_Per favore, signore!_" Le Bello pleaded. "My poor daughter is sick! I need to make money to save her life! Any little bit counts!"

The white-robed man placed a white-gloved hand on Le Bello's chest and pushed him roughly into the crowd, heedless of what would happen if the other patrons got offended at being hit by him. With disgust in his voice, the white-robed man turned back towards the gambling pit, muttering beneath his breath:

"Popinjay."

He walked over to the edge of the arena, as the warrior was making his way out of the arena to much applause from those who had bet on him (and much derision from those who had bet against him). In his hands was a large _zweihander_, the fuller covered in runes. The man in white had seen that blade before, but it had been a long time ago.

"You, in white," he said, pointing to the robed one. "I want to speak with you."

"I was hoping you would." he smiled.

The two plowed their way through the crowd down one of the hallways of the arena and out into the streets. They came to a halt at the edge of one of the large canal-streets. Venice was a city built upon a marsh, and therefore had more waterways than roads.

"I saw you fell prey to Le Bello." the knight said. He was dressed in armor, and his _zweihander_ made him look like one of those Swiss mercenaries.

"I've met his type before," the white-robed man returned. "Suffice to say, my coin is still in my purse."

The two shared a light moment where they laughed a little easily. It felt good to laugh, though it still felt wrong.

"I saw you before," he began. "In Toldeo. You were there when the mansion burned."

The white-robed man said nothing else for a long while.

"You know something, don't you?" he asked.

A smile came across the white-clad man's dark face.

"Yes," he said at last. "But we cannot speak of it here. Meet me in the clock-tower outside of Olsztyn, in the Union of Poland."

"Why there?" the knight asked. "Why can't you just tell me now?"

But as he turned his head to look at the stranger, he noticed that he was suddenly gone.

* * *

><p>The journey from Venice to Olsztyn was not pleasant. Nightmares plagued him every night, so that his night was worse than his days. A solitary trek through the Alps brought him over into Austria, which would place him closer to Poland than he could have wished for. Days sluggishly poured into each other in a long passage of light and dark in which time had no meaning.<p>

Poland was cold. He had never been this far east. The language was strange, but when he would ask 'Olsztyn?' to the people, they would always point him along his way. As accurate as that could be, which was as good as anything in this foreign land.

As he approached the town and saw the church in the distance, he suddenly came upon a strange realization.

What if this is a trap? The church was rather secluded, built upon a hill some ways out of the town, possibly too far for a cry to be heard by any with open ears. It would be far too easy to attack one in a secluded church a far distance from the town.

A strange curiosity filled inside Siegfried's chest. He wanted to see how this turned out, and with full knowledge that he might be walking into a trap, into the arms of death and letting the two swords he possessed be thrown back into the hands of mankind...

He walked towards the church.

The tower itself was a massive construct, unlike anything Siegfried had ever seen in his entire life. Inside the clicking and clanking of the huge metal cogs and wheels upon each other, moving the hands on the glass face of the clock in perfect synchronization with the movement of the sun and moon, was all the sound that could be heard.

It was also impressively high. It had to be, for the giant glass window to be seen from the outskirts of town. Siegfried climbed up the long stairs leading up to the top of the tower. Somewhere in here was the stranger in white, and he had to find him and know for certain if this was a trap or not.

A voice echoed above his head, but he did not see what it was or where it came from exactly. Was the strange man in white already waiting for him? Heedless, he continued on his way up the stairs. He was now a long way from the ground. A fall from this height would surely mean death.

**_Clank!_**

The sound came from directly in front of him.

A huge cog-wheel was rolling down the stairs towards him. If he was hit by it, he would surely be crushed. There was no left-hand, just the wall, and the right-side led down the dreadful fall to the bottom of the clock-tower.

But it was his only chance. He he had to move out of the way or he would be crushed.

With no other thought other than survival on his mind, Siegfried threw himself off the side of the rail.

He suddenly hit the hard floor of...something. He wasn't on the ground, that much was certain. He was far too high up to have fallen that far. And even more so, he was not dead. Opening his eyes, he saw himself standing upon a large rotating platform that looked like a cog turned on its side.

A white robed figure lept down onto the cog-platform. In its hand was a giant scythe, like the Grim Reaper.

"Yes, that's right!" a familiar voice mocked. "That's what it takes!"

"What?" Siegfried breathed. "Who are you? What do you know?"

"I know much," the white-robed man returned, casually walking along the cog. It took all of Siegfried's endurance to keep him from getting sick or sliding off this spinning platform. Was this what it was like to be on a ship in the ocean?

"Especially," he returned. "About that sword."

"How do you..." Siegfried halted. He had the briefest of glimpses of the man's face. It was dark, and one eye shone like gold. He had seen that face before, as he was dying in Ostrheinsburg after the French swordsman cut him down.

"The mark of the Evil Sword is upon you," the white-robed man said. "I can sense your aura. You've been alive for too long."

"I've killed greater men!" Siegfried shouted. Where did that come from, that brazen, fool-headed bravery, that enjoyment of his murders? Was it because he knew that he was more powerful than this one, because of his time as Nightmare?

"I'm not afraid of death," the white-robed man returned very calmly. "But there's no need to prolong this chase. I can sense you have them with you." His gloved hand rose up, a green light glowing around it. Was this man a sorcerer?

He knew about the swords?

"Give them to me, and I'll give you a quick death!"

Siegfried raised the sword in his hand and attacked. The white-robed man moved quickly, and every time the great blade almost hit him, he would parry the blow with his massive scythe. He seemed to be a skilled warrior in his own right.

Furthermore, as Siegfried got a few more glances at him through the light of the clock's glass face, he could see that this man was tall, even more so than he himself. But height meant nothing if brought against superior strength. Siegfried might be weakened from weeks of going without food, the blade he wielded, Gram, was hardly weak.

That was what brought him to Venice. He needed a new blade, and won it from one of the fighters. He said that he bought it from some auctioneers, but how it got from Ostrheinsburg to Venice, Siegfried did not know. All that he knew was that it was similar in shape and mobility to his _zweihander_, so it worked.

But this man, the way he moved, anticipating Siegfried's every attack, was as though the combined knowledge of every swords-master and weapon-teacher down through the ages was being channeled into one body, one mind, that was now evading every attack, parrying every blow, staying just beyond reach.

"How are you?" a frustrated Siegfried shouted. "What do you know about Soul Edge?"

The figure was now out of reach, only his echoing voice taunting him through the clock tower.

"I place my curse on you, bearer of the Cursed Sword!"

Then all was silence.

Siegfried knew that he had come to a trap, and he guessed that he should have been more careful. But right now, he had more on his mind. Should he dare try to catch the strange man in white? What about the blades he now wielded? They were the focus, and they had not yet been hidden away.

_Damn him_, Siegfried thought.

There was only one thing left to do, now. Something he should have done that one day seven years ago, when he first laid eyes upon the Cursed Sword...

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: I'm not a big fan of Dampierre. Like if I had to pick between him, Xianghua or Cassandra, I'd pick them any day! He gets his cameo, but its more of just a lol-moment because he is a popinjay.)<strong>

**(Shouldn't have gone into Zasalamel's POV like that, he's supposed to be enigmatic. Oh well, there won't be much more of that, for certain. Sorry if this was a little slow, but the next chapter will definitely pick up the pace! For now, I'm off to bed. _Gutnacht_)**


	26. Forsaken

**(AN: Long time no update. Been doing some hardcore research for another story which might soon appear hereon. Thank you, so far, for reviewing. I did intend to have the various swords Siegfried has wielded appear. So far - Faust, Grimblade, Soul Edge, Requiem, Gram and [spoiler alert].)**

**(A return of a familiar face and the culmination of the _SCIII_ saga soon to be presented.)**

* * *

><p><strong>Forsaken<strong>

He had to be rid of the two swords forever.

From the moment he regained his consciousness that day in the chapel of Ostrheinsburg, Siegfried Schtauffen desired with all his being to throw the damned blade into the depths of the sea, or into a chasm that led to the center of the Earth, then destroy the path that led there-to and guard it for all eternity.

But the ways of the world were always changing. In Venice he heard whispers of men in India who could dive into the sea at great depth and bring back heavy clams laden with pearls. Surely this meant that not even the sea was enough to contain the evil of Soul Edge. As for places on land, there would have to be a place so lost, so forgotten, that no man knew of its presence or existence, so that no man may never know of its location.

Did such a place exist?

Siegfried left Olsztyn behind him, looking for some place that he could hide the two blades, forever locked and powerless, away from the world. It did not matter if people knew about the blades anymore if they could not find it. That was his ultimate goal, to seal them away for good and make them no longer a threat to the world.

But even as he made his way south-east from Poland, into the land of the Russian Czar, something was aching at the back of his mind. Something had been haunting him everywhere he went.

About a few days after Ostrheinsburg, before he met the insane girl, he had been walking through a forest during the early afternoon. The wind shifted and a strange darkness befell him. Before he knew it, a strangeness passed over his body, bringing pain to his right arm. Looking down, he saw the deformed claw of the Azure Knight looking back up at him. The vision passed shortly, but it remained in his mind long after.

Every shadow he saw, every noise he heard, seemed to be coming from the Azure Knight. But that was insanity. He knew that he was the Azure Knight, there could be no other. Yet he could not shake the nagging, frustrating feeling that he was being followed.

* * *

><p>He was now in the Ottoman Empire, the farthest east he had ever gone in his life. No one here spoke German, so Siegfried found himself much alone these days. Aside from the few Greek ruins, he was now in the land of the ancient Sarmatians, a land many miles north of the ancient city of Babylon.<p>

The ruins of Chersonesus lay before him. A once great city of the Greeks in antiquity, it had been destroyed many times over. It offered a breath-taking view of the Black Sea. Clouds overcast the sky, threatening with the coming of a storm. Among the columns and broken halls that, in their prime, must have once been a sight to behold, walked Siegfried, bearing the sword Gram.

There was a sign of movement higher up the hill-side.

It was a deserted ruin, and any other presence other than his own was a sign of fear: a confirmation of his greatest fear, that he was being followed.

"Halt!" he shouted.

The figure seemed to come to a halt. Though he was heavily laden with his armor and the heavy sword, Siegfried did his best to run up the side of the hill to where the figure had halted.

"_Wer bist du_?" he asked.

"German, are you?"

Siegfried's throat went dry. He recognized the voice that spoke, in the language that he was only a little familiar with, but enough to hold a conversation.

"Show yourself!" he returned in English.

The staccato clip-clop of high heels upon the stone floor sounded from behind him. Siegfried turned, daring to hope that he was still awake and not dreaming.

From behind a column there appeared the figure of one he had not seen in four years, slowly walking out from where she had halted, leading with her hips as usual. She wore her harness of black leather as before, though it seemed even more revealing than before. Her breast-plate was gone, a single length of leather tied across her bust, keeping it together. Rather than pauldrons, her entire left arm was covered in plate armor that shone like polished gold.

"Hmm," she coyly smirked. "Quite a large sword. Either you're compensating for something..." She giggled, and Siegfried had to keep himself from falling apart. "Or you're a Swiss mercenary."

"_Fräulein_ Valentine," he breathed in relief.

"You know me?" Ivy asked, a tone of surprise in her voice. "I can't say I've seen your handsome face before, though..."

He could see her blue eyes examining him from top to bottom.

"Your stance is similar," she commented. Before he could say a word, she drew her sword out from her thigh-boot. It sprang into action, wrapping its segments around Siegfried's neck.

"Wh-What are you doing?" he asked, a little surprised at her action.

"Do you know about the Azure Knight?" Ivy asked, her voice icy cold. "Answer me, or I'll deprive you of your manhood before you can swing that giant sword of yours!"

"He's dead!" Siegfried returned. "Believe me, he's dead!"

"How would you know?" she asked.

"I was there," he lied. "I saw it happen."

There was a grain of truth in it, though. That beast he fought in the void when his soul at last freed itself was as close as he could come to fighting the Azure Knight and its evil, he did see it happen more or less, though.

The snake-sword relaxed and snapped back into its rigid state.

Siegfried, however, was still on the alert. Too many deaths had happened in his journey, based on those who wanted to fight him because of the Azure Knight, to make him relax his guard, even in the presence of one so familiar and welcome.

Though she did not know who he was.

"What do you want, stranger?" she asked. "I've business to attend to, make it fast!"

"I'm searching for a lost place." Siegfried answered.

Ivy laughed. "If what you seek is lost, how do you expect to find it?" She laughed through her amusement at this and then retained a semi-neutral stance.

"And what, may I ask," Siegfried queried. "Are you doing here?"

"I'm searching for Soul Edge." she answered.

"I thought you wanted to destroy that," he asked. "I thought that it had ruined your family."

"You put your nose into things that aren't your business, cur!" she snarled. The sword wrapped around his sword arm.

"My apologies!" Siegfried returned. "Please, forgive me."

A wide-eyed look of surprise flashed across Ivy's face. The sword relaxed its grip on his arm, and she looked out over the Black Sea.

"I must destroy it," she said at last. "It, and all of its evil." Siegfried turned around, and saw that her right hand was resting over her large bust, right where her heart should be.

"Every last trace of it."

He had been with her long enough to know that tone of her voice. It was only brought out of 'moth-balls' and paraded, and that on rare occasion, when she was sad.

"Why is that a cause for sadness?" Siegfried asked.

"Because 'the sins of the fathers,'" she began. "'Are to be laid upon...'" She gasped, as if choking back some horrible memory. "'...the children.'"

This meant little to Siegfried, for Frederick had done nothing wrong. It was his son who had committed the sin. It was all his fault.

A new thought came into Siegfried's mind. Something had changed, he could tell, with this English woman. She was much different than she had been when they first met. He also knew that he was partly responsible for what had befallen her, trying to bend her will to that of the Evil Sword.

Was there no end to this?

"If you're looking for lost places," Ivy said at length. "Sail across the sea here to the eastern shore. Legend has it there once was a labyrinth that went deep into the heart of the earth, the very edge of the world."

"_Danke_." he said.

"It was opened seven years ago," she continued. "During the day of the Evil Seed. Since then, none who have ventured therein ever return."

Siegfried nodded, then made his way from the sad ruins of Chersonesus. He would need to find a town and passage across the Black Sea, to this 'edge of the world.' What better place, he thought, to bury the Evil Sword, locked and powerless with the Sword of Heroes, than at the very edge, in a place long forgotten?

"Take care, sir." a voice called back to him upon the wind.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: A little slow, but I needed to conclude that chapter. I'll make it important in the next chapter.)<strong>

**(This one has been heavily influenced by "Falling off the Edge of the World" by Heaven and Hell from the album _Mob Rules_. Epic!)**


	27. Water

**(AN: I had some difficulty deciding how far I'll go with this story. One of my goals is to explain what changed between _SCIII _and _SCIV_. He seems much more heroic and optimistic in _SCIII_ and then just really isolate and spurns the help of others. I wanted to explain how this happened in my story, and so endeavor to do that.)**

**(With that note, we go to a very mysterious spot on 'the edge of the world'.)**

* * *

><p><strong>Water<strong>

Morning dawned upon the beach of that region of the Caucasus. A great storm had driven the Black Sea into a fury, one that only the fool-hardy captains dare pilot their ships through, especially in the dead of the night.

The lone _Landsknecht_ warrior, Siegfried Schtauffen, was summarily dropped off on the shore and left to wander on his own. Carrying Gram, his heavy armor and two powerful yet silent blades beneath the cloak on his back, he did not have to walk far to find what he was searching.

The foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, the natural border between the Middle East and the land of the Czar, could be seen from the coast. A large expanse of mountain stretched forth a long arm towards the sea, coming to a sharp drop-off just a few feet at the end where the beach became land. Upon the cliff-face there was a great mouth gaping open, like the yawning chasm of some great cave. No formation of this earth it was, for it had pillars supporting it and a great lintel between the two. Upon it was carved an ancient symbol, looking like a single eye, with four spindly arms, like those of a cross, branching out from its edge.

Here it was. At the edge of the world, the Labyrinth that Ivy had mentioned.

A chill air came from the mouth of the cave as Siegfried approached. Pausing for a moment, he impaled Gram into the sand and then went about looking for a piece of dry drift-wood along the beach. Once found, he knelt down beside it and took out his tinder-box. Living alone meant camp-fires, for though he cared not for food, heat or other comforts, his body could not go without heat.

Most of it was spoiled or wet, but there was just enough to get a spark. Wrapping some pieces of tall grass, dried brown by the sun, around one end of the wooden stick made a head of a torch. After a few more strikes of the tinder and flint and some blowing on his part, the torch-head kindled.

Walking back over to Gram, he picked up the blade, then turned toward the cold, wide opening of the cave.

Inside, it was plain to see that whoever had forged this entrance meant for it to be traveled, even lightly. A tiled pathway led deep into the darkness, which was dispelled as Siegfried walked deeper into the cave-tunnel. Behind him the light of day glowed invitingly, offering safety and security within its beams.

Before him loomed the darkness of the abyss.

Siegfried made his way forward, with the torch as his only guide. The light behind him was now a faint speck, no bigger than his thumb, but he continued onward. His torch still burned brightly, and he did not need to take provisions. Suddenly the path turned to the left. There was no other way and, taking a look back at the steadily receding glow of the light, he knew that he could find his way back if he needed to.

One left turn later and now the light of day was gone.

* * *

><p>An hour or so had passed and Siegfried was still walking in darkness. He lost count of how many turns he had made in this infernal cave-labyrinth. It was starting to feel like a maze, with every turn just taking him farther away from the exit and yet leading him nowhere. The air was getting thick and stuffy, he was boiling beneath the armor, and his feet echoed like cannon-fire as they plodded noisily upon the stone floor. His armor made too much noise, the plates grinding against each other, the links of his chain-mail jingling like gold coins.<p>

Time seemed to drag on forever as Siegfried trudged away in this infernal labyrinth. He was no longer even sure if he was going the same direction he had been going when he first entered. So many twists and turns, he might as well be going back the same way he had come. He was starting to get confused, disoriented. All at once, the faces from his past, those faces that returned when he was close to death - his mother, his father, Herr Durer, Sir Stefan, all the others he as the Azure Knight had slain - came back to haunt him.

Tears were brimming in Siegfried's eyes. A strong urge filled within his body to just throw the swords here and go screaming for the exit. But he knew not which way was the exit. Darkness enclosed him on all sides, and only by crawling, with his torch to the earth, could he make out his way or see if the path suddenly fell off into some great chasm or pit of death. Besides, he wasn't far enough into the labyrinth. If he could make it this far, others could as well and stumble across the two swords.

_No,_ Siegfried thought,_ if he were to hide them away forever, he would have to go through the whole labyrinth to the very end and then throw the swords away._

After that, there probably wouldn't need to be any going back. All he had done was cause pain, everyone who had come in contact with him or cared for him - his father, Sir Stefan, Karl and Hans Durer, Herr Von Krone and thousands others - were now either dead or worse. Everyone who came into contact with him had come to harm.

If he was to fulfill this quest, he realized now that it would have to be alone. There was just no other option. He would have to go to the center of this labyrinth alone, drop the swords and then stay there to die with it, guarding it for all time with his bones. There would be no need for living once the blades were secure.

"Pluck up, heart," he muttered, his voice echoing off the walls of the tunnel. "It's almost over."

* * *

><p>The sound of rushing water filled his ears. This gave Siegfried some hope, for where water could go, it could also escape. All he had to do was follow the water.<p>

Before his eyes a strange, blue glow was starting to gather, like the soft shine of the pale moon upon the snow. The cave tunnel gave way to a large, long tunnel, made of some gray stone that looked like marble, but older beyond his reckoning. Markings of the strange eye, or many others that bore striking similarities to all those cultures of the world, were emblazoned in gold upon the stone walls. A great deal of pillars supported the ceiling from caving in on those below. A single path went, for as far as Siegfried could guess, straight, with lanes of deep water on either side.

He also saw the source of the light. Narrow torches upon the walls and fat-bellied braziers upon the floors burned blue fire that illuminated the whole passageway. The water shone like a calm sea at midnight with the full moon above. The whole effect was mesmerizing and breath-taking.

Here, at the edge of the world, some great people, the fathers, perhaps, of all the races of man, built this labyrinth into the heart of the mountains.

Many more hours had passed since Siegfried saw the blue lights, and they were now leading him deeper and deeper into the labyrinth. All was quiet, save for the flickering of torches and the clanking of Siegfried's armor. The whole air was tense, as if in anticipation of some great portent of doom that lay just ahead. Siegfried's brow was covered in sweat, chilled by the cold air of the place. His eyes were getting heavy, he now felt more weary than he had ever felt since that dreadful night eight years ago.

When Frederick Schtauffen was murdered by the son who professed to love him.

In the world above, day must have passed into night. Siegfried could feel it, more so than just the aches in his bones from lack of sleep. He felt ready to collapse in this dungeon-like labyrinth. The flesh was taking over, and he wished he could just lie down here and spend eternity in sleep.

But he knew better than that. Death for him would mean hell, for all the evils that he had done. He did not fear hell anymore: life itself and the memory of his sins had become more torturous than burning in some pit far beneath the Earth for all time. He knew that he deserved to die. Ivy was right, the evil of Soul Edge pervaded more than just this sword. She would begin a whole new crusade of killing those who had been cursed by the Evil Seed. Luckily he did not tell her who he really was, or his journey would have ended there in the Crimea. But now she would destroy the evil, while he would make sure that no one ever found the blades again.

It dawned upon him that the world as he knew it was never the same since that day, seven years ago, when he took up Soul Edge. The Evil Seed had brought much evil to the world, driving men mad, transforming others into vile monstrosities and upsetting the very balance of nature. And he was the progenitor of it all. The magnitude of this horrible truth bore down upon his conscience, filling him with a firm resolve.

_The Evil that I released seven years ago should never have been_, he thought. _My kind, what I brought to life that day, shouldn't be allowed to exist in this world._

Only sheer, raw will power kept Siegfried on his feet, pushing him forward.

* * *

><p>At last, he came to a fork in the path. One led to the right, going down further and deeper. The glow of the blue flame did not reach down there, and all was darkness. It looked like the gaping maw of hell reaching out from the depths of this infernal labyrinth, grasping at Siegfried.<p>

To the left, the path ran at a hefty slant upward, keeping straight for many long strides before turning right, going back in what would be straight from where Siegfried was now standing.

With a quick prayer - though he knew that it meant nothing, He would not respect the prayers of the wicked - Siegfried turned to the left. It was high time that he start going up, rather than down. The feel of the labyrinth was starting to play tricks with his mind, causing him to see visions of blue armor walking after him, with the intent to kill and devour. The very paranoia that filled him in the world above now threatened to shatter his tortured mind once again.

Up the long length of the path and then to the right. This right path continued on for a ways, then turned suddenly right again. Siegfried found that this second right narrowed off, becoming a narrow passageway of stairs. These he climbed upon, heedless of the smoothness of them in sharp contrast to the rough stones of the labyrinth. The stairs were winding up in a sharp, coiled helix. Suddenly they came to a halt at the start of a long, narrow passage that led steeply upward.

Light was shining from the top of the passage.

Hope filled Siegfried's heart again. With quickened steps for one so weary, he ran up that narrow passage, laughing freely as the light flooded his deprived eyes. The fear of going blind meant nothing to him, for he was so glad to see the light that he would have been glad if it were the last thing he ever saw.

* * *

><p>Siegfried found himself out of the labyrinth at last, standing in the corridor of a high-roofed building made of white, shining marble. The sound of water rushing filled his ears. Walking out a little, he saw that this corridor was a secret hall of a great, high-vaulted cathedral. Unlike those of the Catholic faith, it was bright, shining, made of white marble. Pillars of crimson stone and <em>lapis lazuli<em> adorned the inner hall, with statues of marble and furnishings of gold in every orifice of the great cathedral. Light flooded through the many stained-glass windows, falling in various and sundry colors to dance upon the marble floors.

Even more remarkable about this place was that it was filled with water. Not flooded, but made so that water flowed through it naturally in canals and aqueducts and fountains and small water-falls that brought curtains of water cascading into marble or golden basins, whose many mouths ushered into the canals that sat side-by-side with the walk-ways of this church. There were no pews, just an empty courtyard, surrounded by water and a fence of gold separating it from the altar.

As if this place was not so beautiful, rivaling even the greatness of the unfinished St. Peter's Basilica, that Siegfried doubted not that God dwelt here above all the churches and cathedrals in Christendom, the walls of the cathedral had great arches, openings that allowed sun and wind to kiss this ancient cathedral. Beyond, picturesque mountains covered with snow and sky so clear that it looked as though this were the top of the world met Siegfried's eyes.

A place long forgotten by time, lost to the blind, deaf and dumb world.

Siegfried spent a few moments just standing there, enjoying the purity of the place, letting the never-ending sound of the waterfalls and fountains cascade over him, calming his wearied soul. He felt strong, and his purpose seemed clear to him like the sky and the fresh, cold mountain air that filled his eyes and nostrils. A cold, yet soft breeze flowed through from the mountains, blowing his long hair in the wind as he stood upon this hallowed ground.

Looking about, he saw a basin of marble shaped like the shell from which Venus sprang naked. This seemed like the right place, lost forever from the world and found only by him. With trembling hands, he removed his cloak, picked up the two swords, still held together in their embrace, and placed it upon the pedestal.

As if in answer to his unbidden plea, the basin moved back apace, now surrounded by the water. Siegfried at last breathed a sigh of relief. Now the two swords would be lost forever, and he would relish spending the rest of his days in this beautiful place.

His ears perked at the noise of metal boots clanking upon the ground, and a great thing of steel being dragged against the stone. The hairs on his body stood on end, and he was starting to shake. The noise of the foot-steps was getting closer. He was afraid to turn his head, for he could almost guess who was coming after him. But it couldn't be! It was him all along, and now he was free, free! That beast did not exist!

"**_Siegfried!_**"

The voice that shouted to him was harsh, cold and savage. Though it was new, totally alien to anything Siegfried had heard before, he knew the voice. The pounding of iron-clad boots was now in his ears, ringing as the thing was now behind him. It was as if everything he had feared was now coming to life directly behind him, as if the impossible was now made possible.

The nightmare was alive again.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Ooh, what's happening? Is Siegfried going mad?)<strong>

**(It's never said where the Lost Cathedral is located, and since it's 'not on any map', I decided to make him appear therein from one of the many by-ways of the Grand Labyrinth. After all, I thought that the LC was located, more or less, in the Caucasus Mountains, like the Grand Labyrinth. Maybe that's just me)**

**(Did you like my little explanation for Siegfried's rationale behind his _SCIV_ ending? The only people who mistake what he said are people like Cassandra, who want to blame the 'forces of good' [Soul Calibur, divine beings, etc.] for all the bad that happens in their world: talk about ungrateful. But hey, that's just me.)**

**(Next chapter soon to be released!)**


	28. Nightmare

**(AN: _What awaits him in the end is retribution_. - Anonymous)**

* * *

><p><strong>Nightmare<strong>

Siegfried dared to turn around to see who was walking up behind him, though he knew the answer beyond a doubt. The sight that met his eyes was one of utter revulsion. A figure in blue armor stood there, with a huge sword in his hand. The single spire on its helm was just as he had remembered from old, and two red eyes gleamed from the visor of the helmet. But the being that inhabited his armor was different, hideous beyond recognition. The right arm, now more twisted and deformed than before, possessed a great mouth of dagger-teeth upon the shoulder. This deformity was now on most of the body of this creature, for a mouth had pried its way out of the breast-plate and through the left knee-cap of the creature. The sword was red, covered in hardened growth of gray, and a single violet eye rested by the fuller.

This was he, the embodiment of the evil he had brought about since that first time when he touched Soul Edge.

But it was not him, that was for certain. This beast had a strange feel about it, as if it were there yet not wholly there. Though he looked bigger and heavier than he, Siegfried, was, this creature's body was thin and languid, as if it were little more than armor reanimated to fight him.

"I knew you were following me," he returned to the behemoth of evil behind him.

A great, inhuman laugh mocked back at him.

"Follow?" the demonic voice growled in apoplectic fury. "Haven't you guessed, puny host? There is no end to this nightmare...the one you started! Now..." The demon pointed his sword towards Siegfried. "Come back to me, or I'll take my body back by force!"

Siegfried picked up Gram with both hands.

"I'm done with you!" he returned. "Let's end this once and for all, phantom!"

The two lunged at each other, giant _zweihanders_ smiting the other. Sparks rained down upon the marble walk-way as the two swords clashed against each other, sending noises ringing through the cathedral, echoed and amplified by the vaulted ceiling. But even from the start, Siegfried could see that this was getting him nowhere. The beast knew every move he made, and could parry it with ease. It was like fighting someone who knew your fighting style intimately.

_Of course it does_, he thought. _This thing, however I try to dehumanize it, is still come from the same source._

_Me._

The beast struck with such fierceness and power that Siegfried knew that it could hardly be a phantom; could hardly be any human thing. It almost took all of his strength out of him to keep this creature at bay. It could not be allowed to defeat him, not now. There was now a being of the evil sword that existed and knew where it was located, it had to be put down.

"I know...everything!" the fiend before his eyes growled. "While you were running about, I began your slaughters anew!" The two blades ground against each other, both of them straining to best the other. "I've gathered just enough souls to maintain this half-life, and once I've killed you..."

They both fell back, crouching on their knees before each other, staring the other down.

The demon roared.

"Once I've killed you," it repeated. "I shall cover the entire world in darkness!"

The two lunged at it again, man vs himself, sword against sword. Siegfried cared not what dark evil brought this being back to life, for only one thing mattered to him: killing it. But even as he fought, the strain was getting to him. He had gone for a whole day without food or rest in that damnable labyrinth, and now he was fighting for his life against an evil he thought dead and gone, never to see again. A thought frantically filled his head.

What if I can't kill him?

He had tried to bury the past, to hide the swords away and then end his life, but he saw that this demon kept coming after him. Even more so, with every second their battle continued, the memories of his evils came back to his mind. Was there no end to his torment?

"Yes," growled the beast. "I can sense the anguish of your heart! You know the truth, don't you?"

Siegfried's mind was reeling as he desperately tried to keep himself alive in this fight to the death. The faces were flashing all around him, the voices were back in his mind, but now it was horrifying beyond belief. Huge mouths of vile fangs, like the kind that sat upon this beast, would appear on the faces of those he had killed, all those he had met in his life, of his beloved parents, black blood gushing from their mouths, and speak things to him in the hateful voice of this monster.

"_**You will never run away from your sins!**_"

He had to keep fighting, just like before. There was no other option, he could not give up. But his body was starting to grow weary. He could not keep this fight up indefinitely.

But why was he fighting? Just to keep his life going for a few more seconds?

"_**You have no right to live!**_"

Tears were flowing from Siegfried's eyes as he attacked the creature again. It was right, he his sins, but he could not give up now. He had to find redemption, he had to do something...anything...

"_**It is a sin for you to be alive!**_"

The battle continued for hours, the two completely oblivious of those who watched them from the shadows of this hallowed ground. Siegfried's hands were shaking from hours of striking the enemy's sword, his knees were shaking as he was growing weaker. But the thing kept coming after him!

The huge deformed hand grabbed his own hand in its demonic fist.

"Remember the life you once led!" the beast was speaking now, not the memories. "Remember the souls you took! No matter how much you run, no matter how much you deny it, I am **_you!_**"

The beast in blue armor pushed Siegfried to the ground. Weakened as he was, he could not push himself back up. This seemed like the end. This new Azure Knight could not be defeated, for it was not of this earth. It rose its arms to the ceiling in triumph, roaring in anticipation of the kill to come.

A sudden burst of green light shot between them.

Siegfried held his hand over his eyes to keep the light from blinding him. The demon must have as well, for no blow followed for a long time. Fearfully removing his hand, he saw a sight that shook him to the core.

On either side, the two blades stood, thrust into the marble. Soul Edge and Soul Calibur.

They were free again.

What sorcery brought this about, Siegfried mused. But he did not have long to muse, for now he had a chance. With that kind of power, the power of Soul Calibur, he had a fighting chance to defeat this evil. He ran to the blade and thrust it from the marble, ready to do battle with the demon once again.

"**Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haah!**" roared the demon in vile mockery.

The blue-gloved hand tossed the ghostly blade he held and took up Soul Edge, the evil eye shaking with ecstasy at being reunited with an evil being of itself.

Siegfried's fingers flexed around the invitingly cool hilt of Soul Calibur, then turned his gaze back towards the Azure Knight, his nightmare. New power flowed through his fingers as he readied to attack, to destroy this foul creature one last time.

He ran forward, blade in hand, ready to mete bloody retribution on this evil. The two swords slashed through the air, colliding with each other. They rang like hell, but something else was wrong.

Siegfried could feel the tense air shattering. The calm of the waters was becoming a raging torrent of fury, the marble of this place was shattering as if ready to come apart at the seams.

He could not stop now. He had to defeat this evil once and for all. Again he charged, deflecting blows from the Azure Knight and attacking the beast himself. None of their blows seemed to find a mark, and those who watched must have thought this was nothing more than a dance, the way their blades never seemed to find their mark.

But it was no dance. Each blow the two swords made against each other sent shock-waves of energy echoing across the world. Here, in this Lost Cathedral, the waves were the most potent. Though invisible to the eye of man, the very land was breaking apart with the power of their battle. Nature, time and space were warping here at this spot, where two powerful entities now collided in a battle so fierce that it would rival even that between Christian and Apollyon.

Darkness was now setting in upon the world. That event known as the eclipse was taking place. The moon came before the sun, and day became night as if it were the Day of Judgment already. The two blades continued clashing, now raining fire upon the ground with each blow. The earth was breaking apart at their feet, the pure waters becoming vile sludge, the calm air was filled with fumes of foul steam.

Soul Calibur and Soul Edge clashed again, the two blades grinding against each other. Siegfried's blue eyes stared down the evil, red eyes of the beast he had brought into the world, his alter ego the Azure Knight. This had to end here and now, it just had to. To prolong this would only bring about more evil.

But something was wrong. A great presence was forming between the two of them, as sure as Siegfried could tell as they strove against each other. Still he pushed on, refusing to give up. He could not give up, his father told him that he could not. He made his father proud that day in Ostrheinsburg when he broke free from the evil of Soul Edge, he would not let him down by giving up now.

The presence unleashed upon them. Siegfried's body was in pain, and his whole world suddenly went black.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Cliffhanger!)<strong>

**(Fyi, I don't own John Bunyan either. Just needed that for literary enhancement.)**


	29. Alone Again

**(AN: Thank you again for all the reviews. We're almost done here, so don't go away now!)**

* * *

><p><strong>Alone Again<strong>

He was being shaken by something from beyond him, from beyond the void of darkness that consumed him.

But that could not be, for he was dead. The beast had surely had its way with him, and his quest, his redemption, so close to being fulfilled, was now in ruins. He had failed, he was too weak to defeat the Azure Knight, the evil within his soul.

His eyes blinked open, and he saw a face just a few inches above his own.

"You!" he cried out. With urgency flowing through his weakened body, he pushed the figure off himself and staggered away.

"Some welcome!" a voice commented. It was not the harsh voice of the Azure Knight, though. His vision was too bleary and his ears still rang with the echoes of swords clashing against each other.

"Get out of my way!" he returned. He didn't care that he was being harsh, nor that he could barely move. He would limp away from this person who dared try to help him.

"Siegfried, wait!" the voice returned. His eyes were getting better, though all he saw was a mass of gray and something red.

"Leave me alone!" he shouted.

"It's me," the voice returned. "Von Krone! You're safe now!"

"You're not safe with me around you! Go, run away!"

"You're talking nonsense, Siegfried! I'm your friend, remember? You were a friend of my father, of my kingdom..."

"Damn your father, damn your kingdom, and damn you if you get in my way!" Siegfried roared. He didn't care that she might be hurt by his words. Better hurt for a moment then dead forever by his hand. He was crawling away, his right hand still clutching something cold.

Now he was up on his feet.

"So you would forsake our friendship?" the voice that spoke was sad, though not overly so. Hilde knew quite well how to mask her feelings. Even before, she never betrayed an ounce of what her heart felt.

"Yes," he returned. The memories were flooding back to him. New ones of the Lost Cathedral in flames, of a little girl's mind broken in two, of his father dead at his own hands and many others flooded back into his mind. "No one will ever again be a part of my life. Every man or woman who has known me has ultimately fallen to death's touch."

Weakly, he pushed himself onward just a little bit more, hoping to get as far away from Hilde as he could.

"Go," he said, not even bothering to look behind him. "Leave! Forget you ever knew me."

Siegfried walked on weakly, refusing her help. He could not afford to have anyone else killed on his behalf. Ivy's life was now hell because of him, the Frenchman was most likely dead now, the little insane girl driven even deeper into madness. They were just a few leaves in a forest of those who had seen misfortune or died at his hand.

He could not let it happen again. As sure as he knew that Soul Edge was out there again, in the hand of this new, demonic Azure Knight, he knew that there would be no going back. Once Soul Edge was destroyed, he would die as well. Only death was a fitting retribution for the evil he had done. He would never see his mother again, never see Hilde, Ivy, Johan Durer - though he knew the man probably wanted him dead. The eastern warrior he fought that day in Ostrheinsburg, the monk and his girlfriend, the man in white robes, even the damn-annoying Greek girl. They were now nothing more than memories, forever to fade from his mind.

Beyond the apathetic, cold heart of Siegfried Schtauffen, behind his back, the woman whose resolve was as iron as the plate metal that encased her body let slip a moment of weakness. It was hard, being forced to become an adult at the tender age of eleven. She had a kingdom to run now, and she would never know love, never know beauty, never know life as a woman of her time should. That did not bother her, for the security of her people was all that mattered.

Loyalty, that mattered to her as well. Loyalty to her father kept her resolve adamant, gave her the strength to endure. Loyalty to her people sent her out of the shelter of the Schwarzwald to destroy this evil. And loyalty to her friend drove her to save his life. But to him, loyalty meant nothing. The brave, noble man that she recalled from her memories was gone.

All alone, separated from her servants, her attendants, her friends, a small tear fell from Hilde's gray eyes.

* * *

><p>Night was closing in upon him. He did not know where he was, nor did he care. A will other than his own was driving him, and he had to face this new Azure Knight before it caused any more mayhem. His evil had been allowed to roam free for far too long. It had to come to an end. He could not keep the world from being hurt by his evil if he allowed this new malfestation to live.<p>

As the sun was going down, Siegfried came to a halt by a lake. There was a bridge before him, but he paused in his walk. Looking down, he saw that a great transformation had come over himself. A sheet of frost-like crystals of pale blue and white covered his body and his armor, leaving only his face intact. Fear took him and he began moving his hands across his body, trying to pry the crystals off.

"Leave it there."

A voice spoke to him. Siegfried looked up and saw nobody there. He was certain he heard a voice, but chose rather to turn his attention back to the crystals.

"If you remove them, you will die."

He knew a voice had spoken to him again. Looking about, he saw once again no one other than himself and the Sword.

Soul Calibur looked damaged as well. Where once it was a _zweihander_ with a hilt of crystals, it was now broken. Large crystal shards lay around the single sphere, in a shape similar to a sword blade. How did he not notice this before?

"This is my new shape."

The voice spoke in Siegfried's mind, and it spoke with a voice he had known before, but only as an enemy. He saw the sphere of the Spirit Sword shining.

Soul Calibur was speaking to him again.

"What have you done with me?" Siegfried asked.

"I saved your life," Soul Calibur spoke. "When you clashed with Soul Edge, a terrible power was unleashed. It destroyed both of you, but I spared your life by sealing your body in crystals."

"Why?" he asked. "Why didn't you let me die?"

"There is still a task to fulfill," she answered. "The Evil Sword grows powerful, and soon it will gather the lost pieces unto itself once again. When it is complete, the darkness will consume the entire world and hope will be gone forever."

"Why are you choosing me for this task?" Siegfried asked. "I'm a sinner."

"I am a creation of man," she began. "Many eons ago, the Hero-King forged me from a fragment of the Evil Sword he had cleansed, so that I may always counter its evil with good. I am not a god, to punish you for your sins. I am only a savior, to save mankind from a terrible evil that is about to be unleashed if the Evil Sword is allowed to continue."

Siegfried's mind went numb at the realization of this. He realized that now he was just another part of an eternal game, a struggle between good and evil that lasted for millenia. Was that all that life meant, just being a piece on a great game-board of the Heavens?

He rose up and prepared to continue on his journey. As he grabbed one of the crystal-shards, he saw that they formed a great blade of crystals in the familiar _zweihander_ shape. Apparently even Soul Calibur fit itself to the needs of the wielder. With this in hand, he made his way onward.

Suddenly, Siegfried saw one standing before him on the other side of the bridge. He held a huge scythe, and was clothed in white. Could it be? Was this the man who had attacked him in Poland?

"Be wary," the Spirit Sword said. "He is dangerous with sorcery and with words. He thinks nothing of duty or hope, only of his own satisfaction."

He continued walking forward, finding himself brought before the bridge and starting to cross. As he stood, he suddenly saw a bright flash of green light, upon which he closed his eyes to prevent himself from being blinded. Opening his eyes, he saw a sight that took his breath away.

Standing before him, alive and in health, was Frederick Schtauffen.

"My son," he greeted.

"F-Father..." Siegfried breathed. Impaling Soul Calibur in the ground next to himself, Siegfried ran towards his father and embraced him. "How is this possible?"

"I am here for you, my son." Frederick said. "To offer you guidance and counsel."

"B-But this cannot be!" Siegfried protested. Or could it? He had seen many strange things happen in his life, especially in the last seven years.

"How many more sins must you commit," Frederick said. "Before you realize the truth?"

Siegfried took a step back. He was still having doubts over this, for the memory of that night, seven years ago, were still fresh in his memory. The wind blew the clouds from the face of the moon, and suddenly the head that he held triumphantly aloft was brilliantly revealed.

"What is the truth?" he answered.

"I have seen what you have done," Frederick returned. "Now you devote your life to atoning for your sins and redeeming your soul. Are you not as much a victim of that sword as others?"

What 'sword' did he speak of? Was it Soul Edge? Had the evil he had done been because of it, and so he sought to destroy it because he was bound to its evil legacy? Or was it Soul Calibur? No! This was exactly what it had told him. He had expected any and every other villain to assault him on his trail.

"My sins cannot be forgiven," Siegfried obstinately responded. "The Evil Sword did not force me to do the worst of my sins..." He turned back to the apparition before him. "No cursed sword forced me to kill my father."

A loud, mocking laugh erupted in the steadily darkening air. The image of Frederick disappeared, and once again Siegfried saw the white-robed man standing upon the other side, like the Grim Reaper.

"Sanity is such a frail thing," the white-robed man said, taking a step closer. He was just as tall as Siegfried had remembered him, though his hood was thrown back. His dark-skinned head was sheered clean of hair, and he had the _lemniscate_ tattooed onto his face. One eye was shining like gold.

"Easily manipulated, and easily broken as well."

"Don't expect forgiveness for that, you bastard!" Siegfried shouted.

"Forgiveness?" the white-robed man laughed. "Why should I ask for forgiveness from you? The only one at fault is you: betraying reason and logic by allying yourself to some power beyond your ken. It can only lead to greater ruin."

"Spare me your beguiling words, charlatan!" Siegfried returned, picking up Soul Calibur in his hands. Before he could act, the figure vanished, replaced by something that looked like a skeleton wielding two swords.

Siegfried attacked the puppet and destroyed it without mercy. The pieces fell apart in green fire, but the white-robed man was nowhere to be seen.

From out of nowhere, there was a profound ringing, barely audible to those whose ears were not as keen as those of dogs. The earth began to shake, and Siegfried feared the worst. Looking about, he feared to see some demonic entity arising from out of the depths to destroy him.

Far off, he saw the source of the tremor. A great whirlwind of a storm was blowing up several miles away. By the unnatural dark clouds he saw nearby, he could surmise that he was exactly where his dark journey had begun.

Ostrheinsburg.

"The Hero-King has awoken," Soul Calibur whispered. "He has the power to command both swords. Already he sends his will to summon the evil things of Ostrheinsburg towards that place: his tower. The Cursed Sword will most likely be going there to harvest souls of powerful warriors on their way to that place."

Siegfried nodded. This was exactly where he needed to be, fighting that demon. Destruction of the Azure Knight would come by his hand, and then he would die himself. That was the only way to be rid of the evil he had brought. Patricide, betrayal, corruption and upsetting of the very fabric of nature were only a few of the sins he had committed. He was now far gone, so convinced that he was beyond redemption, that he would not believe that the God he once believed in could save him even if He came down and told him so. But he himself could not forgive himself, he could never forgive himself for doing the terrible evils he had done. There was no hope of salvation or redemption, no light at the end of this tunnel, no dawn to counter the darkness he was now voluntarily stepping into. The past was dead to him: he would never see the faces of those he once loved, those he once cared about, ever again. That was the only way he could save them. Though he was free from the influence of Soul Edge, Siegfried was governed by the desire to appease his own pain, his own tortured conscience, regardless of anyone else who got in his way. He had come full circle. The selfish boy who refused to take responsibility for the murder of his father was now a man who selfishly refused to accept the consequences of his evil actions. Any semblance of his Protestant upbringing was gone in his self-centered desire to save himself from his own damnation.

With resolution in his heart, Siegfried Schtauffen turned his gaze northward and walked out towards the tower. The palace of the Hero-King, where it had all began so many eons ago: the Tower of Remembrance. As he had been when he killed his father, when he killed Sir Stefan, when he walked the earth before he found Soul Edge, when he was banished into the void by Soul Calibur, and when he was killed by the French swordsman...

He was alone again.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: <strong>Let me remind you that the one who broke the Soul Embrace, the source of the green flash from the last chapter, was Zasalamel, not Siegfried. I specifically refused to mention him to increase the enigma. I referred to the flash again for this chapter so you could see that.)<strong>**

**(Although I liked _SCIV_, it was very short [even shorter than Prince of Persia: Two Thrones]. You will definitely see that reflected in this story.)**


	30. The Ascent

**(AN: I promised that, when _SCV_ came out, I would pick up this story. In keeping with that promise, I return to this story to finish the story of Siegfried Schtauffen.)**

**(I have to say, though, that I was thoroughly disappointed with _SCV_. As such, I will simply conclude Siegfried's part, since he plays very little importance in the story of _SCV_.)**

* * *

><p><strong>The Ascent<strong>

The earth heaved with the rupture of the great tower, sending forth rivers of molten earth and lakes of fire spilling upon the land. The very bowels of Hell were being vomited upon the waking world, torturing plant and creature: all life seemed to melt before the rising of the great tower.

The Tower of Remembrance.

Siegfried Schtauffen, the forsaken warrior, made his way towards that blasted land, eternally guided by the voice of the Spirit Sword. Legions of warriors from all corners of the world converged upon the Tower, and Siegfried felt that he would have a tough time reaching the summit.

The path to the gate led perilously close to the rivers of fire. One could not come within five yards from the lakes of fire when they were burning and red, for the skin would burn off their bodies even from a distance. Siegfried saw several warriors, also, come too close to the edge of the rivers and burn to death in a hideous miasma of acrid smoke and screams.

But Siegfried had a weapon on his side that was more powerful than anything in the world. As he made his way towards the tower, step by step, the tormented earth beneath his feet cooled down as a sheet of pale crystals sprouted all around him, quenching the violence of the molten rock.

He now stood at the gate of the tower, and three figures rose up to block his path. One he knew all too well: the golem. His flesh was shattered like the broken earth all around them, and his eyes burned with fire. Astaroth was even more fierce-some now than it had been before. The other of the three figures was that little girl, a twisted smile on her face. In stark contrast to her volatile behavior, he saw a young girl, a few years over three, whose eyes were glowing red. It seemed such an odd thing; something so innocent, tainted already with the Evil Seed.

But it was the third figure that disturbed him the most.

"You!" a voice spoke out behind him. Turning around, Siegfried saw three women at his back. He knew all three of them all too well. The tallest of them was Fräulein Wolfkrone, clad in her armor with a sword in one hand and a lance in the crook of her arm. The other two were the female assassin from the East and Cassandra.

"You were a beacon of hope," the assassin said, pointing one of her short daggers in the direction of the third figure. "The champion, our hope against the Evil of Soul Edge. What has become of you?"

Siegfried looked at the woman to whom the assassin spoke, and he knew her. As he had once possessed the Evil Sword, he knew everyone it had come into contact, and this woman had the horrible misfortune of having the pieces of the Cursed Blade lying in her body like a malignant tumor, working their mischief from within. As he possessed the Blade, he knew who she was, and her history with the sword, and that made this betrayal all the more shocking and disturbing.

"I never asked to be your champion," the blond woman shook her head. "The gods used me," She drew her sword, and pointed at the blade in Siegfried's hand. "That sword used me! But they refused to protect my child!"

"Please," Cassandra begged. "Sis, go home! Everyone is worried."

"I have made my decision, Cassandra," the older woman replied. "I will die for my child." She then looked Siegfried directly in the eyes. "Can you say the same, murderer?"

The monster laughed. "The host returns, with three little b*tches as his back-up! Come for me, worms!"

"What did she mean?" Hildegard asked Siegfried.

"Oh, you mean you don't know?" the little insane girl asked, with a mocking smile on her face. "You remember the Azure Knight, the one who destroyed your kingdom and cursed your father?" She laughed in delight, then pointed at Siegfried as her mood changed. "This fool used to be the possessor of the sword!"

"You were Der Alptraum!" Hilde asked with shock, looking at Siegfried over.

"Enough of this!" Astaroth roared. "The sword hungers for souls!"

* * *

><p>The giant brought the mighty ax down upon Siegfried. With any other sword, he would have moved aside. But the voice of the sword spoke to him, and he held up the giant, crystal blade and held the move at bay. At his side, he could hear the shouts of the others as they jumped into the fray.<p>

But the giant was his prey. The giant ax against the Sword of Heroes. Only the monster's brute strength kept him from being obliterated by one swing of the sword in Siegfried's hand. Astaroth rained curses in the name of his pagan god down upon the holy warrior, who remained resolute. The babbling of this clay puppet were nothing compared to the atrocious blasphemies he himself had committed.

Though Siegfried had the might of this sword on his side, he could feel his strength waning. Yet he saw that the monster was not even tiring: this was just a game to him, a petty exercise of its bestial might and power. Did the Sword of Heroes have the power to destroy this beast, or was its power only as much as that of the bearer? Even so, it seemed that this beast was actually starting to get the best of this encounter.

Suddenly, he saw a huge white blur tackle the monster. It looked like a monster itself: the head of some horned, armored monster of the south and arms the size of tree-trunks. Was this the behemoth, the beast of Job against whom not even the trees and the mountains could withstand?

"Young man!" a voice cried out from the horned head. "Now is the time! Strike him down!"

In a blur, the young pirate from the east struck down upon the black giant. In concert the white giant and the pirate engaged their foe in this final fight to the death. Siegfried gathered his strength, picked up his sword and made as if he would go after them.

"No!" Hilde's voice called out. "We have to find the Azure Knight."

Siegfried nodded, then, with Hilde at his side, they made their way into the gates of the tower. Behind them, they heard the Greek woman cry out after them. One by one, the blond Greek woman and her annoying sister ran after Siegfried and Hilde as they made their way up the steps of the tower.

"Sophitia!" Cassandra cried out. "I can't believe you would do this!"

There was a sharp clang, a moan, and then only Sophitia, the blond woman, was following the two armor-clad warriors up the tower.

"I cannot let you bring harm to the Sword!" she roared at them.

Now Siegfried clashed with the Greek warrior. In his mind, he heard a sea of voices from the Sword he bore, and a thousand memories he knew were not his own. From without, the woman's fury exploded upon him like a storm, as though she were the thunder-god himself. Her eyes blazed with fury and were red. But, though, Siegfried felt the faint trace of the Evil Seed upon her, it was not the curse of the Evil Seed that made her eyes red. In fact, he saw that her eyes were burning red for a much more natural reason.

Tears.

He had fought many people in his life, those who fought for glory, for honor, for greed and the thrill of killing. Now, as that fateful moment in Ostrheinsburg, he was engaged with an opponent who fought for love.

"You don't need to fight me!" Siegfried said. "I have to destroy the sword, it is a terrible evil that must be stopped!"

"That 'evil'," she returned. "Is the only thing keeping my child from harm!" Once again, she attacked, determined to assuage what seemed like an inevitability. Her sword and shield were powerful, but antiquated. Even if he bore the blade of Requiem, he could easily defeat her.

But he did not wish to bring her to harm. His heart went out to her, in a way that he had never imagined was even possible. He could not do it, he just couldn't. She swung at him with her sword, and he pushed the blow aside. With one hand, he cuffed her on the side of the head with his armored glove. She crumbled beneath the heavy blow.

"I cannot kill her," Siegfried told Hilde, who had stood out of the fight.

"Why not?" she asked. "She was possessed by the Evil Sword!"

"To protect the ones she loves," Siegfried returned. "My father told me that warriors think not of themselves, but of others. For this reason have I come, to destroy...what I unleashed."

He turned around to face Hilde, seeing the disbelief in her eyes.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"In another life," he said. "I was the Azure Knight."

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: What do you think?)<strong>


	31. Redemption

**(AN: A rather short chapter, but it is important. As Hilde's ending doesn't happen, though the essence of it is canon, I have to explain that away somehow.)**

**(Thank you, _ZoZo1770_, for your dedicated reviews. I hope you're glad that the story is being finished up here. As far as shipping Siegfried/Hilde, it might actually be canon.)**

* * *

><p><strong>Redemption<strong>

Hildegard von Krone looked on with a grim countenance as Siegfried Schtauffen told her his tale, from beginning to end. He left nothing out, even though his own will fought to paint himself into the best light possible for such atrocities he had done. But there was no excuses, he knew this now, and told her everything. She kept an unreadable expression on her face, but mused on what he had said inside.

He, Siegfried Schtauffen, was responsible for everything. The Evil Seed, which had cursed her father, was his doing. The monster that now walked about in azure armor had been an offspring of his own evil, and it was that monster that had besieged her homeland. But even if it had not done anything to harm her personally, the evils it had done were so numerous and all so grievous.

"I forsook everything," he concluded. "Home, peace, loved ones, everything, to atone for my sins. I do not ask that you understand what I did, or that you empathize with my plight. I brought this upon you, upon your people, upon the world. I was the slave to the nightmare."

Suddenly, Siegfried placed the sword upon the ground and knelt down before Hilde, offering his back to her.

"Once I've brought an end to this nightmare," he said. "I want you to kill me."

An audible gasp escaped her lips. "Kill you?"

"As long as I remain," he said. "The evil I unleashed will remain. You must be the one to do this, for your people..." He sighed, closing his eyes. "And for your father."

"No," she shook her head. "I cannot do this."

"You mock my sacrifice?" he returned.

"No!" she stated firmly. "Whatever you were..." She turned to face him. "Is not what you are now."

"As long as I live," he repeated. "The world will never know peace."

"I won't do it!" she resolved.

Siegfried rose up and took his sword in his hand. "Then get out of my sight." He walked on toward the stairs. "I must finish this penance alone."

"Why alone?" she asked.

"I...I cannot let my evil," he said. "Hurt the ones I love."

He made his way, but the sound of metal against metal stopped him dead in his tracks. Resting upon his shoulder was the edge of Hilde's sword.

"What you have done," she said. "Is knightly. A true warrior's valor comes from his self-sacrifice."

"Why?" he asked. "Why would you do so much for me, after all I've done to you?"

Hilde lowered her sword, and he turned to look upon her. Siegfried noted that her face was down-cast, but not in sadness so much as in some kind of embarrassment. Truly, the color of her face was now almost the same shade of scarlet as her hair.

"'A true warrior thinks not of himself,'" she repeated. "'But of others.' You should heed your father's words. I do."

"For me?" he asked. "I don't deserve it."

"I know," she returned. "Even so, for you and..." One armored hand slid up and came to rest upon the lower portion of her breastplate, just above her belt.

"...for this one."

* * *

><p>Siegfried was as stunned as though he had been struck by that giant's ax. He flogged his brains, trying desperately to think when he could have actually done that with her. He knew how it was done, from the all-too vivid images of the time he spent with Ivy in Ostrheinsburg. Yet he had no such memories of Hildegard.<p>

"How?" he asked. "When?"

"The sword brought you back to me," she said. "I...I became impassioned. When I knew, I tried to rouse you, but..."

It all came flooding back, the voice rousing him up from out of the darkness, and his rude brush-off. But now a sudden realization dawned upon him: he was a father. By doing this, by ending his life, he would do as he had done with his father, and the cycle would cease to end.

"What happens now?" he asked.

"I've brought my people here," she said. "My army awaits orders a mile from this place. We have come to render justice upon the Azure Knight."

"That is my duty," Siegfried said.

"I cannot let you fight the Azure Knight alone," she protested. "You...you almost died the last time you faced him."

"Who told you I faced the Azure Knight?" he asked.

"A strange warrior from the east," was all she would say. "It matters not. You cannot face him alone."

"I must!"

Suddenly, there was an explosion, like the sound of a thousand cannons firing at once. A deafening boom was heard and the two armor-clad warriors walked to one of the stained-glass windows of the tower. Marching towards the army in the distance was a huge shape clad in blue armor.

"He's going towards the army!" she said.

"He will devour their souls," Siegfried returned. "They don't stand a chance!"

His hands tightened around the pommel of the Sword of Heroes, power coursing through his veins. The wounds on his body ached as they neared the sword that had caused them. With Hildegard von Krone at his side, Siegfried Schtauffen turned his gaze away from the Tower of Remembrance, whose crown rested high in the heavens. Before them a black shadow lay heavily over the armies of the Kingdom of Wolfkrone. He sighed and said his last prayers.

His journey was coming to an end.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: A short chapter, but to the point. And yes, it is said that Hilde had two children. Who the father was, however, is not said. As far as this story is concerned, I have said it is Siegfried [see<strong> **_ZoZo1770_****? I listen to the suggestions of those who review, so don't be afraid to keep reviewing].)**

**(The final act is approaching. Hopefully I can top myself, and hopefully you will enjoy it)**


	32. Armageddon

**(AN: One last cameo from our favorite character, and now the final battle.)**

* * *

><p><strong>Armageddon<strong>

Chaos erupted upon the fields before the Tower of Remembrance. Many of the warriors departed back to their own homes, while only a brave few remained. Alone the Azure Knight charged into the ranks of the Wolfkrone army, the Evil Sword devouring any who stood in his way.

On the other side, warriors from all across the world were united for one moment to face the evil of Soul Edge. Siegfried saw the eastern pirate, the man with the bow-staff, his young girl-friend, a strange masked warrior with a thin eastern sword, a young woman enveloped with the wind and many others making their way towards the Azure Knight. At their head marched Siegfried Schtauffen and Hildegard von Krone.

Together.

Battle erupted at last. Soldiers fell in droves at the feet of the Azure Knight. Those whose souls it devoured rose up as servants of the Evil Sword, manifestations of the malignant power of the Cursed Sword. The army of Wolfkrone was in peril, and Siegfried and Hilde now increased their pace as they ran towards the front of the battle.

They came to a skidding halt as the rotting, putrid body of an undead pirate captain was thrown in front of them. Siegfried knew this face all too well: it had been the former host of the Evil Sword, the pirate from whose cold, dead hands he had pried the Cursed Sword. Barely alive, the creature was crawling towards two swords that lay forsaken just a few inches out of reach. A high-heeled leather boot came out of nowhere, pinning the monster to the ground.

"Stop struggling, you cur!" a familiar voice spat at the creature in venomous indignation.

The old memories came back once again. Now the predator had become the prey, and the daughter avenged the sins her father had committed against her mother. But he feared for Ivy in that moment: she did what he himself had done to his father, would there be hope that she could be saved after she had destroyed him? But now his task lay before him. It was now or never. For Wolfkrone, for Valentine, for redemption's sake, the Azure Knight must die.

Suddenly, there was a flash of red light. All around him, Siegfried felt, reality was warping. The fields of battle turned into a place of chaos, similar to that place he had experienced when he first pulled himself from the grasp of the Evil Sword. Held aloft in the creature's hands was the Evil Sword itself.

Soul Edge.

The time for words had passed. With Soul Calibur, the Sword of Heroes, in his hands, Siegfried stood to challenge the Nightmare. The beast turned and lowered the Cursed Sword, ready to do combat in turn. No more taunts, no more mocking memories: the darkness knew that he had faced his demons and triumphed, there was no more fear to devour, nothing to exploit in the soul of the champion of light.

The two swords clashed as they had for thousands of years. From each blow, powerful surges of energy coursed across the Void, as they had in the Lost Cathedral of Water. The Void seemed to buckle and contort as the two blades struck again and again. All others around them were forgotten. Starks flew across the ground and pieces of crystal were shattering from the sword.

Every wound on Siegfried's body cracked open with fiery pain. Looking down upon his armor, he saw the crystals that encased him were growing. Suddenly the pain was gone, replaced with that feeling of the Spirit Sword that was wholly unique. The darkness quivered in response, sensing the end was near.

Siegfried, now a current of the light, raised Soul Calibur one last time. In defiance, the Azure Knight lifted Soul Edge high, its blade burning with fire. Without another word, they charged at each other.

When their swords met, it seemed as though the entire world was now grinding down to a halt. Time moved slowly as the power of Soul Calibur and the Evil Sword flowed around the two figures. It became too much and suddenly there was an explosion. Siegfried felt himself moving backward, shards of crystal breaking away from the giant sword.

In the blink of an eye, he saw the monster bring down the sword to strike him down. Into its infernal eyes, defiant till the end, Siegfried stared as he turned the crystalline blade of the sword towards the gaping maw of the unstable form of the Azure Knight.

Time stopped at last as even the Almighty Ones looked down, waiting for the final strike.

* * *

><p>Siegfried Schtauffen was alone again.<p>

He looked upon the slaughter that the Azure Knight had brought down. Hilde was away, rallying her people once again. But Siegfried could not lift his eyes away from what he had seen. The Evil Sword was gone, the Nightmare was over at last.

_Why, then,_ he thought,_ do I know that this is just the beginning?_

Looking about, he saw a sight that stayed with him till the end of his days. That odd little girl was weeping at last. Her lord, the Azure Knight, the one she had pledged her life and soul to, was dead. Her world had been destroyed and she was left alone. What was worse, the little child in her arms was lying on the ground, quite forsaken. Its red eyes were burning and the body was convulsing, as if in the throes of death.

The blond woman, a champion once herself, now a mirror bereft of the light, threw herself upon the ground before the child. Siegfried beheld her at last in the little light there was, no longer as a dream or a vision. She was very beautiful, with a face of innocence now scarred by the cruelty of this world. For a moment he saw that face, innocent, beautiful and mortified, before her hands covered it up and she wept.

What happened next went by so fast, Siegfried could not react until it was too late. The woman moved her hands, shaking violently, from off her tear-stained face. One hand reached into her boot and removed a dagger, whose naked blade she thrust in between her ample bosom. A fountain of blood issued from out of her heart, staining her white robes and fair skin. Before he could protest, or even move, she took the handle of the dagger and dragged it down, cutting herself open down to about a span above her navel. With her other hand, she reached into the bloody abyss of her body and pulled out a bloody mess. She reached out and placed her bloody hand upon the writhing child, then at last she ceased to move.

To this sad scene appeared Cassandra. Disregarding the hideous creature bawling for the loss of her dark lord, she threw herself on her sister's body, muttering "Sophitia" over and over. Her own hands trembling, she turned the pale body over to look her sister in the face. Siegfried saw the older sister's body was covered in blood, her white robes stained red and her hands covered in her crimson life's blood. But it was the thing that Sophitia had left on the child with her last breath that chilled Siegfried to the bone.

A tiny shard of some blood-stained metal rested upon the child. Siegfried prayed that what he saw was just a trick of the light, or because it was covered in blood. Yet he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what that innocent-looking piece of metal was that rested upon the body of Pyrrha Alexandros. It glowed with an eerie red fire, a kind of fire that he himself knew all too well; a kind that he had had personal experience regarding.

It was a shard of Soul Edge.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Yep, this chapter has spoilers, and lots of sad stuff as well.)<strong>

**(As they say, there can be no victory without loss, no triumph without sacrifice. Siegfried gets to see first-hand what kind of consequences this victory has.)  
><strong>


	33. Epilogue

**(AN:/)**

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue<strong>

Siegfried Schtauffen vanished after the battle at the foot of the Tower of Remembrance. A great victory had been won, but not without a great cost. The Sword of Heroes refused to speak to him as it had before. Healed from his wounds, he returned home to his beloved Germany, an eternal ally of the Kingdom of Wolfkrone.

His ancient gang, the _Schwarzwind_, he reformed to combat a new threat. The offspring of the Evil Seed still posed a great threat to the world, and he had to remove this evil as well. With the Princess of Wolfkrone at his side, he turned these thieves and brigands into mercenaries who fought to rid the world of this terrible evil. Though she never outwardly associated with the _Schwarzwind_, Isabella Valentine remained in touch with Siegfried and helped him in his quest to destroy the Evil Seed. For they both knew that their work was not yet over.

The tale of the two swords has existed since before recorded age. Mankind has always sought power, whether to kill his fellow man or to overthrow the Gods he detests, and the lure of ultimate power ignites the flames of desire in the hearts of all. In the 16th century, the swords awoke again and a great war waged for seven years, with much evil falling across Europe and Asia. The Evil Sword, for a season, was defeated. But the world is changing, and the 17th century has come. As mankind turns to himself as his own god and savior, the power and purpose of the two swords is uncertain. Will those who feel themselves above the Gods and the Sword of Heroes ignore the tale of swords as a myth, or will they, in their arrogance, seek to master the Sword of Souls for their own purpose? The future is uncertain, but chaos shall always follow those who face the gruesome quest in search for the Ultimate Sword.

**_The legend will never die... - Anonymous  
><em>**

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Ending has been edited for <em>SCV<em>. Yep, I guess that's the end. A few spoilers to be mentioned here, didn't like how _SCV_ ended. They pretty much killed off all endings for every single character except for Pyrrha and Patroklos, in which they use Soul Edge to destroy Soul Calibur [yes, I said they used _Soul Edge_ to destroy _Soul Calibur_]. In that context, every other character besides these two are pretty much meaningless, including Siegfried, who plays a very small role in _SCV_. As such, I don't think I can expound any more in this story.)**

**(Farewell, and until next time.)  
><strong>


End file.
